Criminal Legal Aid

Lord Clinton-Davis: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	How they propose to address the issue of the level of income of the junior Bar and of many solicitors in relation to legal aid in criminal cases.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, legal aid must provide access to justice in criminal, civil and family cases. A disproportionate amount is spent on a small number of high-cost criminal cases. That money needs to be spread more evenly across all categories of case, civil, criminal and family, to ensure access to justice and fair remuneration for practitioners. I have asked my noble friend Lord Carter of Coles to develop a package of reforms. He will report early next year.

Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I thank the Lord Chancellor for that reply. Are the Government aware that too many lawyers are currently withdrawing from criminal legal aid and that in consequence both advocates and litigants are at this time being unduly and unfairly prejudiced? Does he recognise that criminal legal aid is increasingly failing to provide the sort of cover originally envisaged—a situation which, in my view, can no longer be tolerated—and that the further delay he has outlined is unacceptable?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, over the past eight years the amount spent on criminal legal aid has gone up from about £750 million to £1.2 billion. The problem is not the amount of money being spent on criminal legal aid, but how it is distributed among practitioners; the problem is not in relation to the quality of cover given to defendants, but unfairness and disproportionate amounts of expenditure on those very big cases. We need to redistribute the money, not just to the more normal-sized criminal cases, but also to civil aid. Where I am most concerned about lawyers leaving is not in relation to criminal legal aid but in relation to civil legal aid. Very few new practitioners come into that field, and there too many areas where people cannot get proper advice.

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord referred to the importance of cutting the amount spent on high-cost criminal cases. Does he not agree, however, that under the Criminal Defence Service (Funding) (Amendment) Order, against which I shall be praying on Friday, the cuts are not just to the rich lawyers at the top, but also to junior lawyers doing ordinary cases? Would these cuts be acceptable to those in other branches of the public service?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the cuts we introduce in the order to which the noble Lord refers were targeted at the highest-cost cases. We sought views from both the Law Society and the Bar Council, and they did not suggest that we reformulate them to get at another bracket. So, after consultation, we promulgated them, believing them to be targeted at the right category of case.

Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords, is my noble and learned friend aware that before I came to your Lordships' House I was the General Secretary of a trade union representing hundreds of thousands of low-paid workers? Following the abolition of wages councils I fought strenuously for the introduction of a national minimum wage. Can my noble and learned friend tell the House the extent to which the income of many solicitors and members of the junior Bar compares with that of millions of people on the national minimum wage?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, despite what one reads in the press, that income compares very favourably with the national minimum wage.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I declare an interest in that the Sudbury office of my firm has a criminal legal aid franchise, although it is now completely uneconomic and barely any work is being done under it.

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Noble Lords may say that, but no one in this House should underestimate the seriousness of the crisis regarding the defence of criminal cases in this country. There are now black holes of provision in Devon and Cornwall, the Isle of Wight, Lincolnshire and many other places. Is it not about time that the noble and learned Lord abandoned these endless reports, of which the Carter report is the latest, and just looked at the bare facts; that the remuneration rates for solicitors in criminal cases are one-third of the Court Service's recommended rates for civil litigation?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that something urgently needs to be done about the matter. The money that has gone into criminal legal aid has increased dramatically, but it has gone to the wrong place. That is why there needs to be a redistribution. That is what my noble friend Lord Carter is seeking to do, and do it in such a way that he can bring the legal profession with us.

Lord Ackner: My Lords, from what I have understood of the press notices, there is no longer any resistance on the part of the junior Bar to accepting briefs. A number of them refused to accept briefs in order that the public should realise, first, that their remuneration had not moved for eight years, and as a result was 30 per cent below what it should have been; secondly, that a review was promised in May but never took place; and, thirdly, that there were unilateral cuts. Having made their points, and, I think, obtained a fair amount of sympathy, they have now returned to accepting work, awaiting the Carter report. Is the noble and learned Lord aware of all those facts?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, in parts of the country certain members of the Bar refused to take work for a period of about two weeks. That has now ceased. I do not know what their motivation was. It is worth pointing out that junior barristers are paid on average £650 for a one-day trial and £1,300 for a three-day trial. People can judge for themselves whether those are reasonable rates.

Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate: My Lords, is my noble and learned friend aware of the case that I read about recently in which there were three main suspects for a crime: a rich lawyer, a poor lawyer and a tooth fairy? Needless to say, the rich lawyer was arrested because the other two were figments of the imagination.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, it does the House no credit to do anti-lawyer jokes.

Pensions

Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Why self-invested pension plans (SIPPs) will be allowed to invest in assets, including individual houses and fine wines, from 6 April 2006 when SIPPs will not be regulated before 2007.

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, pension simplification replaces the numerous existing tax regimes for pensions, creating a single unified regime for tax-privileged pension savings, including a common set of investment rules. The Government are also consulting on widening the definition of persons eligible to establish a tax-privileged pension scheme and extending the existing regulatory regime. Subject to consultation, these proposals, designed to open up the personal pension market within a full regulatory framework, will be in place from April 2007.

Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Can he not see the serious concern in the City and the pension fund world about opening up self-invested pension plans to tax-sheltered investments in second homes, fine wines and the like? On Thursday, the Financial Times, under the heading, "Sipping and guzzling", stated:
	"The unregulated nature of SIPP investments raises fears of another mis-selling scandal. The tax breaks may also be too good to last".
	Why not announce now that the SIPP rules will not be relaxed until 2007, so that proper regulation can be in place and we can avoid the nightmare of a regulatory gap year?

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, the Government are aware of that gap and the concerns that have been expressed, and we are keen to work with the pensions industry to find ways to ensure that consumers are provided with advice for making decisions about investing in SIPPs. Guidance is already available on the FSA and HMRC websites, but I should stress that these investments are not a new class of privileged investments for pension schemes. Most pension schemes already have these investment opportunities. Some 15 million people are already in schemes that are covered by them, but there has been a great deal of unjustified hype about these proposals and we think that, for many people, putting such assets into SIPPs would be inappropriate.

Lord Barnett: My Lords, I declare an interest as having benefited from the major tax relief available for annuities, but does my noble friend accept that the major problem with all change to pension laws is constant change? Does he accept that the case for a general pension reform, including SIPPs—and there is a major case for that—would be possible only if there was all-party agreement? Will he therefore rule out the possibility of seeking to deal with this on a party political basis and seek that agreement?

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, we have already been through a simplification process which went through Parliament with all-party support. I thought that that was widely accepted as the right thing to do by the industry, by savers and by all parties in this House and the other place. But it is important to the huge issues that surround pensions that we seek to build a consensus, which is why the Government are looking forward to the final report of the commission in which the noble Lord, Lord Turner, has been involved to which we will respond appropriately in due course. Consensus is important. We are dealing with long-term issues.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, for the benefit of noble Lords who, like me, are na-ve in these matters, how do fine wines produce a pension?

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, that is a very good question. I understand that the concept is that fine wines may increase in value over time and, if held in a pension scheme, in due course, if realised, could provide the wherewithal to pay a pension. I think that that is the underlying concept, as is the case with any asset. The tax rules need to be taken into account. Holding such wines outside a pension scheme might generate some capital gains tax liability in due course. Put into a pension scheme they will engender some tax when they are taken out as a pension. Personally, I am more in favour of keeping fine wines in the kitchen rather than in a pension scheme.

Lord Newby: My Lords, is the Minister aware that members of the Liberal Democrat Treasury team in your Lordships' House and in another place have received letters—along with thousands of other people, no doubt—from a company called Inside Track, with the alluring heading, "Make your fortune in property and retire early". In setting out the case as to why one should buy property before it is built, it states:
	"Then there's the boom in the 'buy-to-let' market which, incidentally, is likely to spiral thanks to changes in the pension laws".
	Does that not demonstrate that this is a current problem, not an issue that will arise even from next April, far less from April 2007? Frankly, is not the Government's response totally complacent?

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I do not believe that the response is complacent. As the noble Lord has highlighted, part of the problem is that this has been built up in parts of the press although from my more recent reading of some of the financial press there is a more effective and sober assessment of what these things entail. The reality is that if people put these assets into a pension scheme they are taking away from their own individual ownership at the moment. If there is use of things such as second homes, there will be a tax charge on people using it unless a full rent is paid for doing so.
	These are some of the matters which have not been properly explained in the press and it is important that we continue to make people aware of that in whatever way we can which is why these consequences have been set out on the website of the HMRC and the FSA. But the Government are working with SIPP providers to ensure that consumers are protected as fully as they can be. The gap is unfortunate but we need to make sure that, if there is to be regulation, there is a proper process which is undertaken so that the regulation is effective. We cannot just put a regulation in place overnight and it is right that the FSA is given a proper opportunity to consult on changes to its rule book so that when the regulation—which is not just about SIPPs but concerns the regime generally—comes into force it is effective and has wide support.

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, so now we know, fame is not the spur to regulation, A-day is. The question that really ought to be asked is why it will have taken the Government 10 years to produce proper regulation of SIPPs.

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, one could ask what regulation was in place before that. The Government have recently gone through a major simplification of the tax regime, to make sure that there are common rules relating to investments and contributions that exist right across the piece. The Government have done their bit—it has been ignored by previous governments for far too long.

Iran

Lord Howell of Guildford: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What representations they plan to make in the immediate future to the government of Iran.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, we maintain diplomatic contacts with Iran on a wide range of subjects, including its nuclear programme, human rights, terrorism and regional issues such as Iraq and the Middle East peace process. We have serious concerns about Iran's policies in all these areas. We do not underestimate the difficulty in making progress, but these issues are too important for us to ignore. Our policy is to bring our concerns to Iran's attention, engage Iran in discussion and look for solutions.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, does the Minister recall the Prime Minister asking the other day, "When are we going to do something about Iran?"? May I put the same question to the Minister: what is our next move? Are we now planning referral to the United Nations and would that do any good or would it merely accelerate uranium enrichment processes inside Iran? And does the Minister recall that the Iranians stole several of our fully equipped new patrol boats about a year ago and never gave them back? Are we ever going to get them back? Is there any move towards compensation or has any other action been taken on that small but symbolic point?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, when we are asked what we are going to do about Iran next, the usual range of options is open to the United Kingdom. We have gone to the part of the spectrum which reflects the need for diplomatic discussion, for trying to engage those in the Security Council who share our concerns, and we have had some success in doing that with relation to the potential for nuclear proliferation. That is not an easy matter and not everybody co-operates with it, but that seems to us to be the right perspective, which we should pursue.
	We have serious concerns about the question of the boats. We are trying to make progress in getting them back and discussions are taking place on that subject at this time.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, the Minister will recall that at the IAEA board meeting of 24 September, five requirements were suggested to Iran for safeguards for the non-proliferation treaty. Has the EU3 had an opportunity to discuss those matters with the authorities in Iran, and with what result, or are we relying exclusively on the report which Mr El Baradei is to make to the board meeting next Thursday?
	Have any steps been taken to persuade Iran to resume the human rights dialogue with the EU which was supposed to have been held in September but which was then deferred to sine die?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, with regard to the noble Lord's second question, we are putting pressure on Iran to resume the dialogue, and a number of specific issues, such as areas of human rights abuse, which are probably well known in the House, make the need for that dialogue all the more urgent. At present, the E3 proposals in relation to Iran continue as a freestanding element of what is generally taking place. We have accepted that Iran has a right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, but we have also offered European support to Iran to develop a safe, economical, viable and proliferation-proof civil nuclear power generation and research programme on the condition that the Paris agreement is maintained, that the seals on the current facilities are retained and that no attempt is made to move from the nuclear fuel cycle into a military cycle. We are trying to be proactive and helpful in those areas, but we will not allow the proliferation abuse to continue.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, can my noble friend assure us that in the welter of concerns about Iran—he has described them in relation to the Middle East and the nuclear capability of that country—we are also making bilateral representations on the specific question of the public execution of young people under the age of 18 who allegedly have been found guilty of sexual misdemeanours? I am thinking particularly of young women, who allegedly suffered this penalty in public in a way that most of us find completely repellent.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, we are making representations on those subjects. There is a dispute about how many are involved but a number of young people—not only women but also people under the age of 18—who were alleged to have committed crimes have been executed. The European Council has been engaged and has agreed a statement, which the United Kingdom with the presidency of the EU has also backed directly, expressing the EU's deep concern. We have called on Iran to clarify the position immediately. It is a contravention of Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and we are pursuing those with great vigour.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, following a visit to the camps on the Iran/Iraq border, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Slynn of Hadley, put forward authoritative findings and called for the de-proscription of the Iranian resistance. What consideration is being given to the noble and learned Lord's recommendations? Does he not agree that it is a paradox that we recognise a state where, as the noble Baroness said, women and children are publicly executed and where the president has called for the wiping out of the state of Israel while we proscribe the democratic resistance that is seeking to build a civil society and a plural society inside Iran?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, it is hard to identify viable forces among the opposition in Iran. When this question has been asked before, I have been constrained to say that the opposition that we have been asked to recognise has been proscribed under the anti-terror legislation. If it is helpful to noble Lords, I am willing to set out the sequence of events which led to that proscription rather than do so in an Answer in this House. However, I think that the evidence is compelling.

The Lord Bishop of Oxford: My Lords, the Minister mentioned a range of very serious concerns and I wonder whether I can ask him about another one. While in this country, a number of Iranian asylum seekers have become members of the Christian Church. They are afraid to go back but very often are sent back. Will the Minister raise with the Iranian Government the question of asylum seekers who become Christians during their time in this country and return to Iran?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I am very willing to ensure that I, or another Minister as appropriate, raise those questions. We have major concerns about the situation of religious minorities in Iran, including the Christian community, and we have made it clear to the Iranian authorities that we believe that the persecution of individuals on grounds of their religious beliefs is unacceptable. We are particularly concerned about converts, and I will ensure that the point is made with great force.

Education White Paper

Baroness Williams of Crosby: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Which proposals in the education White Paper will require primary legislation.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, the annex to the White Paper, at pages 113 to 116, sets out its legislative implications. These include a statutory right for teachers to discipline pupils, duties and powers for local authorities in respect of falling schools, more free school transport for poorer families, new curriculum entitlements for learners aged 14 to 19, powers in relation to trust schools, and the power to set nutritional standards for food and drink supplied on school premises.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Does he accept that the White Paper adds up to a huge transformation of the education system in this country, including the effective ousting of LEAs from their previous responsibilities; it also has large implications for public expenditure because of the massive transfer of assets to independent state schools? Does he agree, therefore, that it would be inappropriate in a parliamentary democracy for these changes to be brought in by a series of statutory orders—affirmative orders, and so on—and that therefore a major Bill should be brought before this and another place so that there can be a full discussion by Parliament on the huge implications of the White Paper?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, there will be an education Bill which will cover all the matters set out in the annex to the White Paper. I dispute the idea that there is a huge transfer of assets which has implications for public expenditure. Trusts which operate schools, including trusts which operate schools at the moment within the state system—and there are many—are allowed to use those publicly provided assets only in respect of education. Those assets revert to their previous source if they cease to be used for that purpose. So we do not believe that there are any implications of the kind that the noble Baroness suggested for public expenditure.

Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland: My Lords, will my noble friends bear in mind that continual reorganisation is often the enemy of continuous improvement?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, if change is not for the better, it will be the enemy of higher standards; but the changes set out in the White Paper build on existing good practice, including in the issue of trusts, to which the noble Baroness referred. Already more than 2,000 schools have specialist status. They engage with a wide range of external partners to their mutual benefit. These partners, including the Churches, have a great deal to bring to education and to the opportunities for our young children and young people. The White Paper builds on the excellent progress already made in these areas.

Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, is it really necessary to adopt proposals in primary legislation for trust schools? After all, trust schools and foundation schools are fundamentally the same. Would it not be better to get on and implement some of the many good proposals in the White Paper without reverting to primary legislation, which will delay and cause great upheaval—most likely on the Minister's Benches rather than our own? Can we not just get on with it?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, many of the aspects relating to trust schools do not require legislation at all. The main legislative implication for trust schools is a new power for local authorities. I stress that we are not by any means writing local authorities out of the script; it is a new power for local authorities in the regulation of trusts. We seek those powers in order to safeguard the local communities which are involved, not because we need them in relation to the trusts themselves. I should emphasise that a quarter of all schools at the moment are effectively governed on a trust model. They are voluntary-aided schools, largely promoted by the Churches, which have a very similar model of governance. They are mostly very successful schools.

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, if the Government really believe that educational attainment has consistently risen during their term of office—a matter which one might dispute in certain respects—why do they believe that we need a major structural reform of our school system, whether or not that is done by legislation? How will the Government ensure that we do not land up with a two-tier system if every school becomes its own admissions authority?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, there have been major improvements in education since 1997, but none of us on this side of the House is complacent about the status quo. We wish to see further significant improvements. We still have, for example, 242 schools in special measures—schools that have been found by Ofsted, the schools inspectorate, to be failing in the education that they provide to their pupils. There are still big issues on raising standards to address. Of course, all the proposals in the White Paper are intended to ensure that we have less of a two-tier system than the one we inherited, with some people going to good schools and some to much weaker schools.

Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that when the question was raised in the other place today the Leader of the Opposition indicated to the Prime Minister that he should be more concerned with the opposition from his own Benches rather than any opposition from the Benches opposite?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, yesterday I said in the House that omens were good for England to win the first test in Pakistan, so I shall make no predictions about the sources of opposition that we may face in the future.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, will the Government take the opportunity of the new legislation to improve the quality of teacher training? I ask this because the noble Lord's predecessor gave me a Written Answer in the summer to the effect that the average A-level attainment of those taking the Bachelor of Education degree is less than one E at A-level. If they have no subject knowledge, how can teachers impart that knowledge?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I am very surprised at that figure. I will check it and come back to the noble Lord. I think it will be higher than that. There has been a significant increase in the number of applications to teacher training in recent years—a 70 per cent increase by graduates in respect of secondary education. That is partly because of the policies that we have been implementing for the past seven years, including significantly higher pay for teachers, which is 15 per cent higher in real terms since 1997.

Harbours Bill [HL]

Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House.—(Lord Berkeley.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

European Court of Human Rights (Immunities and Privileges) (Amendment) Order 2005

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the draft order be referred to a Grand Committee.—(Baroness Amos.) .

On Question, Motion agreed to.

European Forest Institute(Legal Capacities) Order 2005

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the draft order be referred to a Grand Committee—(Baroness Amos.).

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Identity Cards Bill

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	House in Committee accordingly.
	[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
	Clause 1 [The National Identity Register]:

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 9:
	Page 1, line 10, after "others" insert "who reasonably require proof"

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: The amendment would ensure that the only people or organisations to which proof of one's registrable facts may be given will be those who reasonably require proof of one's identity.
	Noble Lords will recall from yesterday's debate that Clause 1 establishes the national identity register for the identity cards scheme. The facts must be registered compulsorily. The Government argue that that will provide a benefit because we can then prove our identity in a convenient manner.
	My amendment is eminently reasonable. What possible objection can the Government have to a requirement that only those who reasonably require proof should be entitled to ask for verification of identity? If the term "convenient method" in Clause 1(3)(a) means anything, surely it means convenient to the individual registered on the database. Should it really also mean anybody else who decides he wants to ask for identity even when he does not have a bona fide reason for so doing? Surely not.
	The problem is that right from the start of what the Government refer to as a period of voluntary participation, an increasing number of people will either think it necessary to ask for proof of identity or think that they need to offer ID by way of validation to access their registrable facts. The pretext for demanding proof will be extended as time goes on. Opportunities for demanding proof of identity will multiply as the system becomes further embedded. We already know from debates here and in another place that there are concerns about validation creep. The amendment should help to guard against that happening. I beg to move.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I understand from Amendment No. 9 that the eminently reasonable noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, wants to ensure that no one is asked to produce an ID card unreasonably. However we can see no reason to be concerned about that. First, there is already a significant safeguard in Clause 18, which means that no one will be required to produce an ID card as the only method of proving identity until it has become a requirement to register and be issued with an ID card, or unless a requirement is imposed under Clause 15 in relation to public services or under another legislative power. Once it becomes a requirement to register and to hold an identity card, it is surely a matter for personal judgment rather than government regulation for an individual to decide whether it is reasonable in the circumstances to be asked to produce an identity card. The wording suggested in the amendment would be difficult to enforce, so I see little point in including it.
	This limb of the statutory purposes for the national identity register is there to provide a convenient method for individuals to prove their identity. We think that individuals are the best judge of their own convenience. If there is no legal requirement to produce an identity card, it is surely for the individual to decide what is reasonable and what is not, just as people already decide for themselves whether they consider it reasonable if licensed premises require proof of age or even standards of dress to obtain entry. A bank or building society already requires proof of identity before a new account can be opened. Again, it will help in everyday transactions for people to be able to use identity cards to prove their identity.
	In the case of public services, any requirement to produce a card is governed by regulations made under Clause 15. Strict conditions apply to those regulations, which would require consultation with those likely to be affected, as well as parliamentary approval under the affirmative resolution procedure. The purpose of those regulations is not only the convenience of the individual by making it easier to prove identity but also the wider public interest in ensuring the efficient and effective provision of public services.
	The role of the new commissioner should be considered alongside the other safeguards. The newly created post of national identity scheme commissioner will have oversight of the whole scheme, including as set out in Clause 24(2)(d):
	"the uses to which ID cards are being put".
	If the commissioner believes that identity cards are being requested unreasonably, he can bring that to the attention of the Secretary of State and Parliament.
	So, although I understand the concerns of the noble Baroness, I hope that I have reassured the Committee that there are already adequate safeguards in place and that where the public interest is not engaged, we should essentially leave it to individuals to decide for themselves when they wish to produce an identity card. For that reason, I suggest to the noble Baroness that the amendment is unnecessary and invite her to withdraw it.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I hope that she will do nothing of the kind. If this were the first time that the business of information had come up, I would not be so interested in the amendment, but there is a background. The Minister referred to the fact that banks require certain information. Why? For two reasons. First, they were too feeble to stand up to the Financial Services Authority and, secondly, because the Financial Services Authority is constantly asking intrusive questions. The Government seem to forget at their convenience that this country, this economy, this society is increasingly fettered by them with ridiculous regulations.
	So the reason for these identity cards—I do not wish to puzzle the noble Lord—is that the Government, on so many occasions, with no regard to individuals' convenience or freedom, ask for every kind of information. Usually it is to stop something such as money laundering. That is used as a blanket excuse for asking questions which are quite intolerable, a real nuisance, and a serious impediment to business. I hope the noble Lord will not dismiss the amendment as lightly as he appeared to do.

Lord Crickhowell: I do not have difficulty with the principle that if you are opening a bank account you have to identify yourself. But in considering this matter and the safeguards that the Minister says exist in the Bill, I noted the advice he gave me firmly yesterday that I should read the assessment of awareness and demand for the identity cards scheme that his department has undertaken and which has been conveniently placed in the Library. It is a long document, and some of it is fairly heavy weather—no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Gould, who is a great expert and enthusiast for this kind of survey is familiar with it. I noted one paragraph that seems relevant.
	A great deal of the evidence is not simply concerned with the convenience of individuals but addresses the convenience of service users. One paragraph reads:
	"Identity Service Users strongly support the Identity Cards Scheme and will be endorsing this support, by verifying identities predominantly through "front offices" such as a bank branch, a retail outlet etc (59 % of all verification transactions), combining a number of different types of verifications when the card-holder presents him/herself with the ID card, 87% anticipate undertaking visual card inspection, 41% anticipate visual card inspection in combination with a PIN; 45% anticipate visual card inspection in combination with biometrics and 25% anticipate visual card inspection with the added option of a digitally enlarged photograph of the card-holder appearing on a computer screen".
	If I go to a bank to open an account for the first time, I have no difficulty going through those sorts of procedures. But I am a little shaken by the idea that every time I go into Marks & Spencer on Oxford Street, or some other retail outlet, someone may ask me to produce my identity card, and that it may appear on a screen in this way, that every visit I make to a retail outlet will then be recorded, and the fact that the inquiry has been made will be available to others. It seems to me that while there are certain transactions for which people may reasonably seek this kind of identification, we need to be a little concerned at the thought that apparently it will not be personal convenience that is considered a priority but the convenience of retail outlets and other users.

Lord Waddington: We ought to be clear about what we are talking about. Surely every time a body obtains access to the register without the subject's consent, or with the subject's consent only because he knows he will not get a service unless he does give consent, there is an invasion of privacy and a diminution of the freedom of that person to live without interference by the state or other authority. That is what we are talking about here.
	I was astonished by some words used by the noble Lord, Lord Gould, yesterday. They reminded me of the slogan above the gates of Auschwitz, "Work is freedom". He said that people wanted recognition and that recognition came in the form of an identity card. He added:
	"This is their kind of freedom . . . A new kind of freedom and a new kind of identity".—[Official Report, 15/11/05; col. 1012.]
	There is something terribly Orwellian about that. The noble Lord apparently thinks that surveillance is liberty; that is the motto that he would like over the gates to this place.
	Do the Government share those views of the noble Lord, Lord Gould? Do they think that requiring people to have identity cards will extend their freedom? I should very much like to know whether they agree with those bizarre remarks. I do not think that many people outside this place, whatever they think of identity cards, believe that requiring someone to have an identity card or any other piece of paper that the state thrusts upon him extends his liberty.

Baroness Corston: I thank the noble Lord for his courtesy in giving way. Is he aware that many women from our ethnic minority communities in this country, particularly Asian women, see an identity card as a badge of freedom because they are not allowed to have a bank account, a building society account, a library card or any of the things that many Members of this Committee take for granted? They have said to me that an identity card would enable them to say to their husbands and fathers, "This is something that I can have so that I can prove who I am". The noble Lord takes that freedom for granted.

Lord Waddington: I certainly do not think that when the state bestows upon somebody an identity card that that person gets an identity for the first time. We all know perfectly well that there are all sorts of ways of telling somebody who you are. I am talking about an aspect of the Bill that allows people to have access to details about you on a register. I do not understand how on earth anybody in his right mind could say that that extends a person's freedom. I should like the Government to make plain that they certainly do not subscribe to the view that you extend somebody's freedom by intruding on his private life.

Lord Gould of Brookwood: I think that the noble Lord misunderstands the nature of the lives that most people live: how they work hard; how tough it is to get by; how they often do not have a fair deal; and how they feel that other people often get a fairer deal than they do. They think that having an identity card says, "I belong in my community, I have a place in my community, I am recognised in my community and I have freedom in my community". That is because not all people have privileged lives or congenial clubs where they are recognised through contact and whatever. They have hard lives and they want to have identity cards. They see no problem with civil liberties in relation to identity cards; all they see is an affirmation of their identity. In today's politics, as I keep saying, affirmation of identity is vital. Times have changed: we do not live in the world of 50 years ago—would that we could—we live today, in a world where identity is a central, troubling, disturbing issue, and where an identity card helps not hinders.

Lord Waddington: We are talking not only about an identity card but about a register. In this amendment we are talking about the circumstances in which other people can get access to that register and to information about an individual. It is very important that, at an early stage of the Bill, we ensure that the right to obtain access to a person's entry in the register is properly circumscribed. That is why I support the amendment.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Gould, that I do not think he should consider that people who are worried about the liberty of all our citizens, and most of all about the liberty of the least privileged—particularly women and ethnic minorities, who feel that they need a card in order to affirm their identity—do not understand the way the world works. We understand very well. A lot of us have been elected at local level, we do a great deal of social work, and we know just as much, I suggest, as he does about such things. He must not think that because we are worried about underprivileged people's liberty in relation to this Bill that we do not know what we are talking about. I hope he will stop saying that.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I wonder if I could ask a question of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, because I am not perfectly clear as to the impact of Amendment No. 9, which, as we know, adds to the subsection that there must be reasonable proof that the person requesting information needs it. As I see it, those who have given consent to banks and building societies, for example, to access the record of the individual who gave that consent, are obviously not required to give reasonable proof because consent has been given in advance. Therefore, is the amendment addressed to the police and public authorities who have rights under this Bill to have access to the register? If the answer to that is "yes", I wonder how that will work in practice and how, as a matter of day to day reality, a police force, for example, will be able to establish that it reasonably requires access.
	Finally—I hope that this is helping the Committee; it is certainly helping me—would the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, say that her laudable aim, and I absolutely see what she is getting at, will be a touch better contended with in those parts of the Bill that give public authorities and so on, the right to access the register?

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: Perhaps it might assist the Committee if I respond to that now, since we are in Committee; it might inform further debate and the Minister may want to respond. I was going to address this issue in my winding-up speech. I think it is commonly misunderstood that this amendment might have that effect. I do not believe that it does and it certainly is not the intention. The intention is to make it clear, at the very beginning of the Bill, to every member of the public who will be compulsorily registered, what their rights are when they apply for a new passport or renew a passport. It is to give them security about whether they are able to refuse agreement or validation to be accessed; that very freedom that the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, has rightly wanted to focus on. I do not believe that my amendment has the negative results that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, believes. There is certainly scope for further amendments, later in the Bill, which may well reflect his concerns. I do not think mine cuts the Bill off at the knees.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: May I support my noble friend Lady Anelay, who said that this was a probing amendment, and probe a point that worries me in this context? We are reading about the provision of a convenient method for such individuals to prove registrable facts about themselves to others. The amendment would add,
	"others who reasonably require proof".
	The Bill is very broad, and when one goes to Schedule 1, paragraph 17—and I mentioned this yesterday—one sees that some of the things that can be registered include,
	"particulars of any other information obtained for ensuring that there is an accurate entry about that individual in the register".
	This means that, presumably, public officials will make inquiries, perhaps at the person's home, about who else is living with them and the circumstances in which they are living. It appears that all that can be written down and recorded in the register.
	It may well be that, in practice, those who want something from someone else—perhaps a mortgage or something less dramatic—find themselves forced to agree. However, if the words "who reasonably require proof" are added to the Bill, it will be a little easier to say, "No, you are asking for something that is unreasonable"; "You do not reasonably need this"; "I'm sorry you can't have it"; and "You can't legitimately refuse me a service if you don't get it". That would tie in with other discriminatory legislation that the Government are introducing. Could we have a little clarification about what I believe is a genuine worry in a potentially highly intrusive Bill?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I thank the noble Baroness for tabling the amendment in particular because it has enabled some Members of the Committee to give voice to their concerns about the use to which cards will be put by commercial organisations, public service organisations and so on. The protections that the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, seeks will not be greatly helped by this amendment. The kind of situation that he and perhaps the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, envisage is not intended to be covered by the proposal. The noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, alluded to what the amendment would do, but I do not believe it does anything.
	It is important to remember that ultimately it will be a personal judgment on whether it is reasonable for a particular organisation—public service or commercial—to ask for some form of proof of identity. I do not think that these words add anything. For instance, in the situation described by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, it is extremely unlikely that people will be wandering around wanting to check information on an ID that they might have been able to access as a public service.
	We must remember what the ID card does. Primarily, it provides visual proof that you are who you say you are when you are standing in front of the person asking you to identify yourself. I do not believe that the amendment does what it says it does—I do not believe that it offers that extra measure of reassurance. Most people will understand that having the card is valuable to them and is a very convenient way of saying to their bank, their Post Office, or their council tax office, "Yes, I am who I say I am and I have a national identity card with visual recognition which tells you next to my name that I am who I say I am".
	I do not see the reason for the amendment and I do not think that it adds—

Lord Lyell of Markyate: The Minister is making a good point that prima facie the card may be helpful. But, after all, access to the card and its number will in many circumstances give access to the register. It is what is written on the register which is causing some people, including me, worry.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: In most cases, it will not give access to the register. Most organisations which are seeking proof of identity will not, in most circumstances, have access to the register—particularly commercial organisations, as I explained yesterday to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, when he raised that very question.
	As I was trying to explain before the noble and learned Lord's intervention, it will be a document of immense value to people. It will provide the easy, visual facility on the card to show that you are who you say you are. The card contains an ID number and the person seeking the information will be able readily and easily to identify you.
	If the individual finds that intrusive and thinks that an excessive request is being made, he will have a choice, particularly if he is dealing with a commercial organisation, whether he wishes to take his trade elsewhere. If he is dealing with a public service, and that public service body is authorised to have access to the register, the card and the number will enable his identity to be verified very easily indeed.
	So while I understand the concern behind the amendment, we do not share it. We see the card as having a value to individuals, and it will help them in their everyday lives.

Lord Clinton-Davis: I may be being obtuse, but I cannot see why the inclusion of these words is so damaging.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: The reason is that they would not provide the protection that noble Baroness suggests, nor would they add anything to the Bill. We have to assume, as we do in law generally, that information requested is in most circumstances reasonably requested. It will be up to the individual to make a judgment whether that request is reasonable.
	So while I understand the amendment, it does not add anything. In some senses, it would offer people a false reassurance. For those reasons, we do not find it acceptable.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I very much doubt whether the Minister's explanation has helped anyone in the Chamber, and certainly not on this side of it. I wish to make one point and I would be obliged if he responded: this Government are quite unnaturally and unprecedentedly inquisitive. To balance that, and in order to make the process of inquisition easier, they are going to make everybody carry a card which contains information which will make it easier for them to answer.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I make it clear to the noble Lord that we are not going to oblige people to carry the card. That needs to be understood. We have made it very clear on a number of occasions. The noble Lord said that we are an inquisitive government. This card will offer people a very important freedom: the freedom from having their security and their personal details invaded by those who seek to commit crimes against them. Personal identity fraud is a growing issue in this country. The card will provide for many people a guarantee against that. That is why many people in this country think that ID cards are of great value.

Lord Lucas: Following on from what the Minister has just said, what provisions do the Government propose to make for people who choose not to reveal their face in public for religious or other reasons? Are they going to find that their full-face image is none the less flashed up on computer screens at every bank that they visit? Or will specific arrangements be made to exempt them from that requirement? If the Minister has in mind an identity card which essentially relies on visual identification and does not refer back to the register in any particular way, that will be the only way which a bank will have of being sure that the card it sees is being used by the person who should be using it.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: Perhaps we are struggling to get the point over. Perhaps the noble Lord has not heard or read all the previous debates and questions on this issue. His question is based on an assumption; that is, that banks up and down the country will have access to the ID cards database so that they will be in a position to read that card and then bring up that individual's picture on their screens. That will not be the case. That is not how the system is intended to operate. It does not work in that way.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I am grateful to all noble Lords who have participated in the debate. I think that my amendment would provide some protection which currently is not available, but perhaps should be provided. I should like to refer to one or two of the comments the Minister made in his initial response. I know that he has been as helpful as he can in setting out clearly the Government's position. He said that one should not be concerned because of other protections contained in the Bill. To that end he referred to Clause 18, but that provision offers only a partial protection at a particular stage in the process. He also remarked that after compulsion, there will be personal judgments to be made, and that is for some time in the future.
	He also said that it would be difficult to enforce. I have to say with all due diffidence that that does not seem to stop the Government legislating in every part of our lives where enforcement is also difficult but where perhaps it is, on some occasions, proper to do so. I do not think that that is a strong argument.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: If that is the case, how would the noble Baroness envisage this clause being enforced with this amendment added to it? How would that be done?

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: It would be enforced in the way that the rest of the Bill is to operate; that is, to offer the same kind of protections as the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, prays in aid with regard to women living in communities and societies where their rights as women are not treated as equal. My amendment would give people the confidence to say, "No. I have a choice". That is the strength of the amendment.
	The Minister also referred to proof of age and said that my amendment would prevent people who operate licensed premises being able to require validation. Having sat as a licensing magistrate, it is my understanding of the law that it is a legal requirement for a premises to operate a lawful house.

Lord Campbell-Savours: Would the noble Baroness—

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: Perhaps I may finish my point. A licensee has the right to ask for proof of identity and therefore he would not be precluded from asking for such proof. If I am wrong, I shall gladly give way to the noble Lord.

Lord Campbell-Savours: At the heart of the amendment are the words, "who reasonably require proof". Will the noble Baroness answer my noble friend's question: who is going to enforce that?

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I have not provided for penalties because I adopt the same approach as that of the noble Baroness, Lady Corston. Individuals should be given the power to say no and to have that power stated clearly in the Bill. Enforcement in that respect is not required unless the Government are saying that nothing in the Bill needs to be enforced. We will come to civil penalties in that regard later on.
	I am very glad to give way to the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, because I have used her name on two occasions. It is perfectly proper that she may wish to respond.

Baroness Corston: With respect, the noble Baroness may have misunderstood what I said. I do not think that I said anything of the sort.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I shall read very carefully indeed what the noble Baroness said when I have the opportunity to do so tomorrow.
	The Minister also referred to the protection offered by the commissioner, which I think comes too late in the day since it would be available only long after the event. I return to my original words. This is intended to be a constructive amendment and one that does not damage the Bill. I noticed with some alarm that my noble and learned friend Lord Lyell of Markyate thought that I opened my remarks by saying that this is a probing amendment. I was careful not to do so because I never intentionally mislead the Committee and I hope that I have never misled noble Lords on these matters. Certainly I would not do so on this occasion.
	This amendment comes fresh to us but has tested the Government in another place on at least three occasions. The Government's answer at that stage was the same. It did not persuade my colleagues in another place and it has not persuaded me now. I do not wish to seek a further response before the Report stage and therefore it is right on this occasion to test the opinion of the Committee.

On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 9) shall be agreed to?
	*Their Lordships divided: Contents, 141; Not-Contents, 126.

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.
	[Amendment No. 10 not moved.]

Lord Brabazon of Tara: Before calling Amendment No. 11 standing in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, I should point out that if the amendment is agreed to I cannot call Amendment No. 12.

The Earl of Northesk: moved Amendment No. 11:
	Page 1, line 11, leave out "secure and reliable"

The Earl of Northesk: I return to territory similar to that which we covered in our debate yesterday on Amendment No. 8. That said, I assure the Minister that I find the use of "secure and reliable" rather less provocative than "convenient".
	Evidently none of us would question the critical necessity that the ID register be both secure and reliable. As with "convenience", functions of both "security" and "reliability" should be built in from the outset as a key component of the scheme's IT architecture. To that extent it would be wholly appropriate that the Bill requires the operation of the scheme to be secure and reliable, as envisaged in Amendment No. 15, which we will debate in due course. On my reading of the Bill, however, that is not what the words do in their context. As with the use of "convenient" in paragraph (a), they assert without qualification that the register will be secure and reliable. I repeat that I do not question the desirability of this, but simply to say it is so does not make it so. Indeed it might be more accurate to infer that, as things stand, the scheme is showing distinct signs of insecurity and unreliability.
	Clearly the evidence to date in respect of biometric identifiers is mixed. Here I do not question the Government's strenuous efforts to develop reliability within the process of biometric data capture. The Minister referred to them in detail in our debates yesterday. There are some important points here, though. The threshold of accuracy for a whole-of-population database is extremely high. As I understand it, failure-to-enrol rates as low as 1 per cent could render the scheme almost unworkable.
	More importantly, data capture and data verification are two disparate processes. In respect of the latter, the available evidence, some of which I referred to yesterday, suggests error rates running at in excess of 30 per cent in a situation where, as with data capture, figures of around 1 per cent could render the scheme inoperable. This is exceedingly important. It is all very well to establish a system of collection of biometric data that accords with adequate thresholds of accuracy; indeed, it might even be technologically possible so to do, although there is a fair amount of scepticism on that point within the IT industry. In turn, that threshold of accuracy has to be carried through to the separate process of end-user applications.
	Worryingly, our debates yesterday suggested to me that an assumption exists that if data capture can be developed to an appropriate level of accuracy, data verification will, as a matter of course, be equally reliable. This is simply not so. In effect, the case for the reliability of the scheme across the whole range of its processes has yet to be proved.
	As to the security aspect of the scheme, the proposition was advanced yesterday that, because of the scope and character of the database, it will be impossible to make it wholly secure. The Minister referred to the issue in these terms:
	"to date there has not been a recorded security breach or compromise of a government database which is protected in the same manner as that designed to protect the national identity register".—[Official Report, 15/11/05; col. 989.]
	In response, I simply say that there is a first time for everything. In fact, if I consider the psychology of the IT community, I suspect that this will act as a red rag to a bull. Hackers and crackers are just as likely to perceive this as a challenge for them to test their computing skills. To that extent, we had better hope that our debates on this point are not particularly widely read by such individuals. Quite apart from that, as my noble friend Lord Crickhowell pointed out yesterday, the Pentagon's main defence system—where presumably IT security is just as robust, if not more so, than that envisaged for the register—was breached with relative ease by a young man living in a council house in south Wales.
	Moreover, the IT industry, pretty much across the board, is increasingly strident in its criticism of a centralised database for the storage of biometric data, because of the grave security issues it gives rise to—the so-called honeypot effect. In so far as it may currently be fashionable within Government to adhere to the principle that, in determining policy, the advice of professionals should be heeded, what prospect is there that the Home Office will accept this counsel? I beg to move.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I have tabled Amendment No. 175, which stands in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Anelay and Lady Seccombe, and my noble friend Lord Dholakia, and is grouped with Amendment No. 11. Amendment No. 175 seeks to amend Clause 13, which is headed, Invalidity and surrender of ID cards. Clause 13 provides that the Secretary of State may cancel an ID card in certain circumstances, for example, if it has been stolen, lost or damaged.
	My amendment is a probing one in the real sense of the word. I seek to add to Clause 13 the proviso that the Secretary of State will supply another card if,
	"there has been unauthorised access to the record of registrable facts on the Register about the individual concerned".
	In Clause 13 there is already provision for the Secretary of State to cancel and replace an ID card if it has been tampered with. Clause 13(8) states that,
	"references to a card having been tampered with include references to information in or on it having been modified for an unlawful purpose, or copied or otherwise extracted for such a purpose".
	If, as my amendment states, that formulation covers,
	"unauthorised access to the record of registrable facts",
	my amendment is redundant, and I shall be a happy man. No doubt the noble Baroness will tell me if that is the case. If it is not the case, it is worth including the measure as there will, unfortunately, be cases of unauthorised access.

Lord Crickhowell: No doubt we shall be told that the requirement contained in the amendment is unnecessary as there are already obligations on government to provide maximum security in this area, and no doubt the Government will do their best. However, when I reread the detailed comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, I was a little surprised as clearly she had been given a brief that seemed to go rather further than I would have been comfortable with had I been the Minister concerned. I do not pretend to be a great expert in this matter. I was chairman of an IT company for a number of years and one thing I learnt was that I really was not an expert. However, I gained enormous admiration for the technical ability of the experts to develop new techniques. Yesterday, the noble Baroness described the safeguards which were being,
	"designed to provide a 'defence in depth'".
	I am sure they are. She went on to say,
	"The content of the national identity register will never be stored in a manner that would leave it exposed to the risk of data extraction".
	That seems to me a pretty bold statement. She added:
	"There will be a very small number of encrypted communications links serving the database, with no direct PC access to the register. It goes without saying that the register will be developed to be a fully secure method for storing and verifying registrable facts".—[Official Report, 15/11/05; col. 989.]
	I hope that events prove her right and that her optimism is justified, but I want to make one other point.
	The Government may be successful in making the actual register pretty secure, but we know—indeed, this clause deals with the fact—that a number of organisations, the police and others, will have to have access to registrable information. No doubt they will do so through encrypted communications links. But once they have the information, it will be on other systems, and there will be quite a lot of those systems. I very much doubt that all those systems will have been developed in the same way to the same level of security. If I am wrong and if all the other users who will be able to get the information out have systems of this kind, and it will be a requirement that they should have, we ought to be told. We should also be told the cost implications.
	We shall return later to the question of cost—it delayed us for well over two hours yesterday and I do not wish to say any more about it now. But if these and other systems have to be made secure, I suspect that—as we are finding in the health service—costs will continue to mount. When my IT company was engaged on a central government project, the Government came back again and again and again with changes to the specification to try to tighten security, because they discovered that the requirements altered almost week by week. I fear that that will happen in this case.

Baroness Henig: I wish to express some surprise at the points that have been made about security. I heard what the noble Earl said about there being a first time for everything, but I am surprised that he is directing his concerns at the register, which is not yet in existence, when databases such as the Police National Computer and that of the Criminal Records Bureau already exist. If the noble Earl is so concerned about security, why is he not asking questions about the possibility of criminals hacking into the national police records, gaining access to those records and excising them? I would expect such criminals would want to do that to these records if it were possible. So there is no point in the noble Earl being concerned that this has not happened but might in future—massive databases exist at the moment. The whole issue of police records and procedures rests on the fact that that national computer is secure and that the records put on there cannot be accessed by criminals. So I am surprised to hear points made about a database that is not yet in place. We have such databases and, as far as I am aware, their records are totally secure and no one has questioned that.

The Earl of Erroll: As I have pointed out before, in Operation Glade, policemen were arrested for selling information from the database. They only had their knuckles rapped—they were not even locked up. I am afraid that that happens and that the database is not totally secure.

Lord Selsdon: I must declare an interest as secretary of the Parliamentary Space Committee. Many of the members of the United Kingdom Industrial Space Committee are probably involved at a high technological level with the type of the data that may move through space or elsewhere. Nothing these days is fully secure; certainly nothing that goes through the air, down a line or a wire is secure. So the word, "fully" is perhaps over-optimistic. We know that the Government will use their best endeavours to ensure that things are secure. But once information and access to it is known to someone, and even if it is not, the available technology is advancing so rapidly these days that we must not assume that any database anywhere in the world is secure.

The Earl of Erroll: If there is a statutory duty that the database be secure and reliable, what will the position be if that turns out not to be the case? Will Her Majesty's Government be liable in law? Maybe it is not safe for them to promise that it will be secure, given that I suspect it may not be.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: First, I shall pick up two points made by my noble friend Lord Selsdon and by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll. I agree wholeheartedly with my noble friend Lord Selsdon that we expect and understand that the Government intend to provide as secure a system as is humanly possible in a technological world in which we know the ground is shifting all the time. As humans, we are all trying to keep up with those changes. The noble Baroness referred on a couple of occasions to the improvements in the recording of biometrics. She said that she took part in Monday's trial, in which she found the recording of the colour of her eyes swift and straightforward.
	I recognise that things have moved on since I took part in the Government's helpful system of offering peers a chance to get their ID card registered with biometrics in Black Rod's Garden. I went there last summer—along with Andy Burnham by the sound of it, the Minister from another place—but my experience was not quite as fortuitous as his. The uplink collapsed twice during the process of that transfer of data. It took nearly 45 minutes to capture my data. I have problems with my fingerprints because over the years I learnt from my mother—a dressmaker—how to do dressmaking and I have obviously damaged some of my fingerprints. I also have what those who were trying to capture my facial biometrics called, "a bland facial structure". But I will live with that—I have no choice.
	I was told at the time that the technology was advancing and would continue to do so. We understand that the Government are trying to achieve the best and that technology is changing and will try to capture information and store it securely. But my noble friend Lord Northesk is right to direct us to the central question: how is that being done and what reassurances can the Government give us about the way in which they are going to set up secure systems?
	I appreciate that this is the beginning of a long debate in Committee and we will have the chance to refer to this but we will need to ensure that we do probe all these issues. All of us on this side of the House want to help the Government—the Minister may say that we always say we try to help them, but we genuinely want to help them here—to ensure that if they insist upon the national identity register as a way forward, it is the safest that it can possibly be for the people of this country to have such a vital range of information held upon them.
	The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, asked what happens if it goes wrong. Will the Government be held liable for damages? I raised the question briefly yesterday, and perhaps it will assist the Minister to know that I accepted then that there is a later amendment which is specifically targeted at this issue. I believe it is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, but it certainly comes from the Liberal Democrat Benches. I anticipate that the Government will give us a full answer at that stage.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, is right. I indicated yesterday that we will come to that issue in its proper place. Rather than repeat the debate now I hope that the noble Lord will feel content for us to do so there.
	Many of the issues that have been raised this afternoon under this amendment were dealt with in part during our rather long and interesting debate on Amendment No. 1 yesterday and I do not intend to repeat all that I said then. But there are some specific issues with which it is important for us to deal.
	When the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, was dealing with the biometric data and the difficulties that he indicated, he concentrated on error rates of 30 per cent and inaccuracies of 1 per cent. Since those figures seem to have a remarkable similarity to the report issued by the London School of Economics, they probably come from the Italian study which was mentioned in that report. I am sure that the noble Earl will correct me if I am wrong.
	Biometric systems were designed for academic study not wide-scale industrial use. It would be better, as I indicated yesterday, to look at the US National Institute of Standards & Technology data, which were not referred to at any time in the London School of Economics report, as far as I am aware. It is highly unusual for an academic report from an institution of that standard to avoid or fail to identify this very important work. It is the world's leading institute for biometric trials. It has conducted a study with six million fingerprints and confirmed that biometrics was suitable for large-scale use. Indeed, the United States VISIT system uses biometrics for border control and it does not have a 30 per cent failure rate. So I think that we need to put these things into their proper context.
	We have some confidence that the kind of rigour with which we are approaching this issue is correct. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, that the Government will use their best endeavours to ensure that the system that they put in place is the very best that can be provided and that it comes within our knowledge and expertise and the data currently available. However, my noble friend Lady Henig is right to remind the Committee that we already have a number of very complex systems where security is an issue—the national criminal records office being but one.
	I heard what the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, said about three police officers improperly using information obtained from the register. But it is important to bear in mind that, if they were officers, they would have used the very nature of their office to give them legitimate access and then they would have abused it. It does not mean that the national criminal records are themselves thereby corrupted; it means that impropriety of use has occurred and has been identified and those held responsible for it have been appropriately and properly arrested, dealt with and convicted. Of course, if anyone were responsible for a breach of duty, we would expect them to be dealt with similarly.
	The statutory purposes of the register are twofold. First, it will provide a convenient method by which individuals can prove registrable facts about themselves—that is, they will be able to prove their identity—and, secondly, it will provide a secure and reliable method by which registrable facts about individuals can be ascertained or verified.
	The amendments focus on the reliability of the national identity register. As I am sure noble Lords are aware, they are unnecessary as the fact that security of the register will be of paramount importance does not need to be set out in primary legislation. It stands to reason that everything that we are doing is predicated on the need for that security. Furthermore, the Data Protection Act—in particular, the seventh data protection principle—imposes a statutory obligation to ensure that the appropriate technical measures are taken to secure the safety of the register.
	I come to Amendment No. 175 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, which he has kindly indicated is a probing amendment. It would give the Secretary of State the power to cancel an ID card if there had been unauthorised access to the record of an individual. If a card has been lost or stolen and is used to access the register, the Secretary of State already has the power to cancel the card under Clause 13(2)(b). There is also a power under Clause 13(2)(e) to cancel a card of a description that the Secretary of State has decided should be re-issued—for example, cards where there is reason to suspect that the register has been interfered with. As soon as the cardholder reports his ID card either lost or stolen, it will be cancelled. Therefore it is unlikely that unauthorised access to the record will occur and, in our view, the noble Lord's amendment is unnecessary.
	The noble Lord also asked whether Clause 13(7) covers tampering with the register. The answer is that it does not—the provision is limited to interference with a card. But the Secretary of State will have the power to cancel and replace a card in those circumstances under, I think, Clause 13(2)(c). If noble Lords will give me a moment, I will check in the Bill whether that is correct.

Baroness Corston: While my noble friend is finding the appropriate place, perhaps I may comment on something she said earlier. I have been very dismayed at the degree to which noble Lords have referred to a particular report as the "LSE report". It was actually written by a Mr Simon Davies, who works for Privacy International, which is an international organisation that is violently opposed to identity card Bills and has opposed them in many countries. Mr Davies came to a meeting in the other place chaired by me a couple of years ago when the Government first mentioned identity cards.
	It is true that Mr Davies is a visiting fellow of the LSE, but that is a different matter. Indeed, the present director of the LSE, Howard Davies, has confirmed that the document itself is not an official corporate document of the LSE. Perhaps we should start calling it the "Davies report".

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My noble friend is absolutely right: it is the Davies report. I am perhaps in error in calling it the London School of Economics report. That is how it has been referred to in the debate. It is an inaccurate reference. I do not want to cast any aspersions on the London School of Economics. I will certainly take my noble friend's stricture and from henceforth I will refer to it only as the "Davies report". So we have that clarity.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: For further clarification, at the beginning of the report there is a list of the members of an advisory group. Every one is associated with the London School of Economics: Professor Ian Angell, Professor Christine Chinkin, Professor Frank Cowell, Professor Keith Dowding, Professor Patrick Dunleavy, Professor George Gaskell, Professor Christopher Greenwood, Professor Christopher Hood, Professor Mary Kaldor, Professor Frank Land, Professor Robin Mansell, Professor Tim Newburn, Professor David Piachaud and Professor Robert Reiner. I understand what the noble Baroness says but, looking at the report and those who advised on it, I do not think that the Minister should be chided for her shorthand reference to the report as the "LSE report".

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: Whether or not I should have been, I am quite happy to take the chastisement and will do as my noble friend has indicated.
	Clause 13(2)(c) indicates that an ID card may be cancelled if it appears,
	"that there has been a modification of information recorded in the entry in the Register of the holder of the card",
	and subsection (e),
	"that it is an ID card of a description of cards that the Secretary of State has decided should be re-issued".
	I hope that that helps the noble Lord. We do not think that it will cause confusion.
	I should add a word or two in response to the comments made the noble Lords, Lord Crickhowell and Lord Selsdon, about hacking into the system. I at no stage underestimate the ingenuity of the hacker. All I say, as a statement of fact and not an incitement for them to hack more successfully, is that to date the systems we have put in place appear to have been effective.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: How does the Minister know that? The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, referred to criminal records and the person hacking in to the system and expunging his criminal record. The fact that nobody has been caught doing it does not mean to say that it is not done every day of the week.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: We have no evidence. As the noble Lord knows only too well as a criminal lawyer, one has to have evidence before one is entitled to make those comments. So, at the moment there is no evidence which would entitle me to say that this has been done. Therefore, I am not in a position to do so. The noble Earl, Lord Northesk, suggested that we might be throwing down the gauntlet, but of course, we have no intention of doing that. I am confident that we can be relatively sure that the hackers of the United Kingdom tend not to pore over the conversations reported in Hansard. I look forward to being proved wrong, but we should not hold our breath on that being the reality.
	On the information in relation to national insurance records, I gave a full response yesterday. I do not propose to respond again on those matters, as I would simply be repeating all that I said for a considerable period when we last debated the issue.

The Earl of Northesk: I thank the Minister for her response, and thank all Members of the Committee who have contributed to this short debate. As the Minister said, many of the issues implicit in the amendment were addressed yesterday, although I am rather less sanguine about whether they have been dealt with.
	To reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, and indeed, the Minister, much of my time in the House has been spent probing the very issues to which they referred. The noble Baronesses may be aware that doubts exist about whether the Computer Misuse Act is an effective measure against denial of service attacks on IT infrastructure and databases. I introduced a Private Member's Bill to attend to the problem a few years ago, which unfortunately did not receive the Government's blessing.
	I focus as much of my energy on existing databases as I do on the national identity register. I do not doubt the Government's intention to have the very best system, but I am concerned that the very best may fall short of appropriate and adequate thresholds of security and reliability. It is eminently sensible to attempt to probe those parameters, and unfortunately I am not sure that this debate has managed to do so to any great effect. Perhaps we shall have more success with Amendment No. 15.
	I ought to make the point about the LSE report—I shall continue to call it that—that while it has informed my knowledge of the Bill, it is only one of a multitude of sources to which I have resorted to determine my views. The 36 per cent or so of data verification is quoted directly from research in the US and has nothing to do with Italian research. The other thing that I find strange about the LSE report is that it seems extraordinary that rather than dealing with the substance of the report the Government have often aimed to shoot the messenger.
	All those issues aside, I have been unable to progress this aspect of the debate too much, so I am content to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Boston of Faversham: I must inform the Committee that the number who voted Not Content in the first Division was 127, not 126, as announced.

[Amendment No. 12 not moved.]

Baroness Seccombe: moved Amendment No. 13:
	Page 1, line 11, leave out "registrable facts about such"

Baroness Seccombe: In moving Amendment No. 13 I shall also speak to Amendment No. 14. They are probing amendments designed to explore the kind of information that the Government intend to be recordable on and accessible through the ID register. We must remember that we are talking not about matters relating to national security but to what an organisation or a person can ask or be told about another. If it were limited to the single purpose of identification, as my amendment suggests, that would be one thing, but the clause is drafted in such a way that it will allow people to record—and by that token others to access or be given via the register—any registrable fact that they want to about themselves.
	Those facts, as set out in Clause 1(5), are potentially far-reaching. They might include where a person lived in 1999; his national insurance number or insurance policy number; certainly a driving licence number, and perhaps even his car number if the regulations say so. We simply do not know because we have not seen the regulations.
	We know from subsection (6) that information could not include their race, religion or membership number of a political party or trade union. Criminal records are also excluded. Otherwise, pretty well anything goes. That will be a hacker's goldmine and provide instant access to a range of information that otherwise could be only laboriously ascertained. However, if the Government are peddling that as a convenient—how often that word seems to come up—means of information exchange, will there not be a tendency to encourage people to register more numbers than may be prudent in one place? We are always told to keep our numbers separately. Once a person has registered his numbers voluntarily under Clause 3(2), how exactly will access to them be controlled? Clause 19 onwards sets out areas in which information supplied can be used without a person's consent. However careful the original intent—when will we see the draft regulations?—there must be a risk of information creep if the register becomes used as a general identification service, voluntarily or otherwise.
	It would be much wiser and the whole process more manageable if the scope of the register were limited to a narrow, circumscribed list of information that could be recorded and accessed. Does the Minister have examples of any personal identification numbers that it would not be permitted for an individual to record? If I want to put my bank account number on it, will I be allowed to and will it be secure? The present wording is far too wide for comfort and should be narrowed. Does the Minister have any reasonable objection to that? I beg to move.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: As the noble Baroness knows, the statutory purposes of the identity card scheme and the national identity register that will support the scheme are twofold. The second limb of the statutory purposes in Clause 1(3)(b) is to provide the means of identification where that is in the public interest—I emphasise the public interest test. Amendments Nos. 13 and 14 address that second public interest limb of the statutory purposes. Registrable facts are set out clearly in Clause 1(5). As well as the name, date of birth and physical characteristics that could be used to identify someone, they include address, nationality or immigration status. Those are all highly relevant factors when someone needs to prove his or her identity and in meeting the public interest purposes for which the register will be established.
	For many transactions, it is as important to know your address—that is, where you live now—as it is to know where you were born. For a foreign national, it will be as important to know whether you are free to work here as to know your date of birth. So the reference to "registrable facts" in both limbs of the statutory purposes is not unnecessary verbiage but defines the ambit, the outline, of the sort of facts that we would be entitled to ask for.
	As the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee acknowledged in its report, which I very much welcome, the reference to "registrable facts" in the statutory purposes sets the outer limits of the information that may be recorded under the Bill. Many of the subsequent powers in the Bill are linked to those statutory purposes and the limitation in those purposes to the registrable facts is an important safeguard.
	So all those items in Schedule 1 have to fit within the framework of Clause 1(5). If we were to remove Clause 1(5), and retain the order-making power in the Bill, it would be possible for anything outwith Clause 1(5) now to be included by way of order. The Government believe that that would be wrong. As a result, it was proper to outline in Clause 1(5) the outer limits of anything that we could subsequently bring forward and to invite the House to add to those issues in Schedule 1. The noble Baroness will know that any addition to those issues would have to be done by affirmative order. The beauty of the use of the affirmative order—I think my noble friend mentioned this at Second Reading—is that we now have the powerful instrument of the committee which looks at statutory instruments; and we can scrutinise whether they are within the ambit, proper, and so on, before they even come to the House. So we have this extra safeguard. It would mean that, together with the other place, we have a proper opportunity to see whether any new additional matter which the Government chose to bring forward under Schedule 1 fits within the outline ambit which is set by Clause 1(5). That is why we think Clause 1(5) is an additional safeguard and it would be proper to keep it in place.

The Earl of Erroll: This debate has started me thinking about this. Clause 1(5)(g) refers to,
	"information about numbers allocated to him for identification purposes and about the documents to which they relate;—"
	One of the things that came out of, for instance, the inquiry about Huntley, is that if people had checked with the credit reference agencies they could have found out the truth about things such as addresses. I think I am right about that. It may be easiest to use such things as credit reference agencies for proving addresses and other identification purposes. I do not see any reason against it if you are willing to use that to prove your identity when you first register. Would credit card numbers be kept on the register if someone had chosen to use that information? It may be a perfectly valid thing to do. I just raise that for future debate.
	I might as well flag this up now. It relates to the immigration issue in Schedule 1. I do not want the Minister to reply to it, it is really for the noble Lords on the Back Benches. Paragraph (4)(1)(i) of the schedule refers to,
	"any reference number allocated by the Secretary of State in connection with an application made by him for permission to enter or to remain in the United Kingdom".
	You have the ACID number, the Home Office reference number, the port of entry number and the immigration number for starters. I think there are about another four identifiers used internally by IND and, if it concerns children, NASS as well, for trying to track immigrants.
	The Home Office talks about banks, and it has been said that ID cards will remove the need to produce utility bills when opening an account, so some of this information will be released to organisations such as banks. That is presumably in the public interest, because it is in the interest of the citizen to have this information available. This will not all be internal to the Government, where there is a banking system looking at the information to prove identity. However, some of this stuff should not be released outside government circles and should be used internally by government for the more efficient delivery of public services. I flag that up for debate, I do not want a huge reply now.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: I am grateful for this amendment and the opportunity to probe this question. There are perfectly clear things in Clause 1(5), which are entitled to be recorded in the register, such as,
	"where he resides in the United Kingdom".
	That is fine. Of course, most of the people who apply for a card will give accurate information.
	But the likelihood, particularly among some sections of society that are more vulnerable or less aware of the importance of always telling the truth, is that some inaccurate, possibly mendacious, information will be given.
	My intention is simply to probe what will, and will not, be recorded on the register. I make clear immediately my belief that it is quite possible, if my understanding of the Bill is correct, that a number of vulnerable people will have recorded answers about where they were living that turn out to be untrue. Indeed, there may be a succession of them. Schedule 1(7) states:
	"The following may be recorded in the entry in the Register for an individual".
	Sub-paragraph (a) refers to,
	"the information provided in connection with every application by him to be entered in the Register",
	and, leaving out the irrelevant words, sub-paragraph (d) refers to,
	"particulars of any other steps taken or information obtained . . . for ensuring that there is [an] . . . accurate entry about that individual in the Register".
	In other words, it may be recorded that a third party—probably a government official—has tried to check certain information. They may build up a picture of the individual who has made the application that shows that a good deal of the information given on separate occasions is either inconsistent or incorrect.
	I am not saying whether it is right or wrong that that information should be obtained and recorded. I want to know whether under the scheme of the Act it will be lawful to do so.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: It is important to understand the differences between Clause 1(5) and the schedule, so I shall make those clear. Not all of the 55 items listed in Schedule 1 will have to be provided by the individual. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, has indicated, for example, several parts of Schedule 1 refer to purely administrative information, such as the date on which the individual applied to be registered, particulars of every ID card issued to him and particulars of the steps taken to confirm the individual's identity when he applied to be registered. Those details will not be provided by individuals; they are administrative details concerned with the application process and will place no burden on them.
	The initial investigations will be to verify that the person who wishes to be registered is the person they purport to be. For instance, the most important address is likely to be that to which the person asserted they had access as their residence immediately prior to registration. As I indicated yesterday, we will look at regulations on how many previous addresses may be necessary, but I must make clear that it will be in order to verify that the person initially registered is who they say they are for that first registration, which will be of the utmost importance. Thereafter, noble Lords know, the registration of the updated address will be of additional import.
	In response to the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, and others, no number that constitutes or tends to reveal sensitive data can be included. For that, one need only look at Clause 1(6), which makes clear that,
	"the registrable facts falling within subsection (5)(g) do not include any sensitive personal data (within the meaning of the Data Protection Act 1998 (c.29)) or anything the disclosure of which would tend to reveal such data".
	So, for example, the police national computer number could not be added. Voluntary information can only be added under Clause 3(2), if it is within a category set out by the Secretary of State in regulations. That is why, in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, I talked about those things that we may add.
	I cannot imagine what purposes would be served by keeping them on the register, but they would first have to be identified by the Secretary of State as being an appropriate group to add. They would then have to fall clearly within Clause 1(5) and we would then have an opportunity to vote on them. If they were then so added, someone could, voluntarily, add any information to the register which was contained within that new format.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I think the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, said that the key to this part of the Bill, which is at its heart, is that if not included within Clause 1(5), which defines "registrable fact", there is nothing in Clause 3 and Schedule 1 that can go into the register. In other words, Schedule 1 and Clause 3, are delimited by Clause 1(5). Is that correct? The noble Baroness nodded and I thank her.
	I want to point out that if that is so, it seems to me that Schedule 1 is already in breach of that principle. That is partly why I, among others no doubt, have been misled by this. For example, Clause 1(5) (b) says:
	"where he resides in the United Kingdom".
	Schedule 1, sub-paragraphs (f) and (g) say:
	"(f) the address of his principal place of residence in the United Kingdom;
	(g) the address of every other place in the United Kingdom where he has a place of residence".
	That actually gives more information than is permitted by Clause 1(5)(b), because although I concede that,
	"where he resides in the United Kingdom",
	could include multiple places, it does not require him to specify which among his residences is his principal place of residence. I put it to the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland of Asthal, that by having two long lists we have a real danger here. I suggest that there is one inconsistency.

The Earl of Erroll: On the same point—the conflict between Clause 1(5) and what comes later—validation information as defined in Schedule 1 is very much a catch-all. Schedule 1, paragraph 7(d) says:
	"particulars of any other steps taken or information obtained (otherwise than in connection with an application mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b)) for ensuring that there is a complete, up-to-date and accurate entry about that individual in the Register".
	That suggests to me that you will record any information and that that catch-all overrides all these other bits and pieces that we say are protections. This is probably not for full debate now, but all these intermesh and I am not quite sure where we should debate that issue. Like the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, I think there is a conflict between these two parts of the Bill.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: Can I assist as to why I do not, respectfully, agree? If we look at the totality of Clause 1(5), we have in relation to subsection (5)(f) "residential statuses previously held by him," which are not necessarily referable to residences in the United Kingdom. If we then look at paragraph (i), there is, in terms of residence or any other information,
	"information recorded in the Register at his request".
	In relation to residence we have at paragraph (b),
	"where he resides in the United Kingdom".
	That could catch all places at which he resides. I think many of us have the advantage of having more than one home.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am sorry, I did not make myself clear. I accept that point, but my point was that the schedule goes further. If you are lucky enough to have more than one current residence—I am not talking about previous residences in Clause 1(5)(f)—there is nothing in Clause 1(5) that requires you to specify which among them is your principal residence. However, the schedule does require that and so it clearly goes beyond what is in Clause 1(5).

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I do not believe that it does. Clause 1(5) is the outer limit, so you could interpret it to demand that you register all residences irrespective of major or minor. That is the outer limit, but the schedule can provide regulation in relation to what you are invited to register. It can therefore say, "You don't have to register all, just register the one where you are primarily resident". That would not be contrary to the ambit already provided because Clause 1(5) is greater than that which is requested under the schedule.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: We are in Committee but we cannot go on with this argument. I am sorry, but I persist in saying that if Schedule 1 states that you must specify which among your residences is your principal one, that is an extra demand on the citizen and it is not sanctioned by Clause 1(5). Perhaps we should pursue this outside the Committee.

The Earl of Erroll: Presumably that will have capital gains tax implications for householders. Perhaps the Government should put out a warning that it is important for people to get it right, looking forward to when they might sell a house. If they accidentally get it wrong, I am sure that it will be used as evidence by the Inland Revenue.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: The Minister was kindly answering me, but I began to think that I had not put my question clearly. It may be right that we should be able to do this following the passing of this Bill, but I am concerned in part about how the provision is likely to be used, for example, by the police or the security services to question someone who has come into the police station at their request. That person might very well have given many inconsistent answers which might have been recorded under Schedule 1, paragraph 7(a): For example,
	"the information provided in connection with every application by him to be entered in the Register"
	might include addresses suggesting that he was living at a particular time in London when he knew perfectly well that he was living in Norfolk because he was working without a work permit doing something in relation to the vegetable industry, which is one of the Government's proper concerns.
	I am asking: are we not in a position where a huge amount of information may be built up and kept on this register not only as to the accurate answers, which all seem perfectly straightforward and bland when one looks at Clause 1(5), but all the other things that were said perhaps by unreliable individuals in response or as part of their efforts to obtain an identity card or in relation to other things which were discovered by those who were properly, as permitted by the Bill, checking up on the validity of this information under paragraph 7(d) of Schedule 1? It seems to me that in relation to an individual who is being less than candid or is making some foolish mistakes, a substantial dossier might be built up which would subsequently be used by, or might seem to be valuable to, those who are seeking to cross-question the individual about something else.
	I am not saying it is right and I am not saying that it is wrong. I am asking: is this what we are creating?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I understand what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, is advocating and I can see why he is expressing an element of concern. The use to which the security services and others would put this information is in verifying the identity of the individual. I am by no means clear—I will therefore seek to obtain the information—about whether the security services, which as the noble and learned Lord will know will be dealing primarily with terrorism and such, will have total access to all information on the database. As noble Lords will know, Clause 11 creates the power to require information from other databases, and information provided may be cross-checked. This may include a wide range of checks, but the whole issue of the extent to which the security services may have access to the register is quite complex. The noble Lord has therefore raised an interesting and important point. I will certainly write to him. We may need to come back to this issue and clarify the position.

Baroness Seccombe: I thank my noble and learned friend Lord Lyell of Markyate, the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, and the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, for raising other important points. I am grateful to the Minister for her explanation, which I will study very carefully. No doubt, as she suggested, debate on these matters will take place later in the Bill, but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 14 not moved.]

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 15:
	Page 1, line 13, at end insert—
	"( ) The Register shall be established and maintained so as to be secure against any unauthorised use or access."

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I raise this amendment for the commendation of the Committee because it is essential that flat on the face of the Bill is a clause which tells us what is required in respect of the maintenance of the register. The register, after all, is at the heart of all this, and there has been, and I am sure will remain, persistent concern on all sides of the Committee—this is as much a concern of the Government as it is of the Opposition—that this whole new world of a national identity card with a national database should be maintained with full integrity.
	Many speeches at Second Reading, and comments made since, referred to the dangers to which the register will be subject by reason of those who want to subvert it. We live in an age unfortunately where there are many such people and the information on the register will be of value to them. The Minister said—she said it both today and yesterday—that it stands to reason that security is paramount and that we do not need to state it in the Bill because it is so obvious. In any event, said she, the seventh data protection principle states as much. That may be true as a matter of psychology, but I really believe that the duty to maintain a secure register should be slap-bang in Clause 1. Let us compare this Bill with the Charities Bill, which we have just finished debating. Most of the duties which are imposed on the Charity Commission in that Bill could similarly be said to stand to reason and no doubt they do, but we want them on the face of the Bill.
	This amendment is pretty modest. It states:
	"The Register shall be established and maintained so as to be secure against any unauthorised use or access".
	I have to put it to the Government that it is rather odd to say that we do not need this amendment, which refers to security, when Clause 1(3)(b) refers to "a secure and reliable method". If it is not necessary to refer to having a secure register, I do not see why it is necessary to refer to "a secure and reliable method" in Clause 1(3)(b).
	That aside, Clause 1(3) is hugely troublesome. It really is a conundrum within a conundrum. There has already been enough discussion for that to be apparent. I refer to the first amendment moved today, on which we voted. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, went as far as to say that she was not fully apprised of every ramification in the subsection. I am certain that the rest of us would say amen to that. As I read Clause 1(3), it says nothing about the establishment and maintenance of a secure register. The reference made to "secure and reliable" concerns, as I have said already, the method by which registrable facts are to be "ascertained or verified".
	I come back to the point. For the life of me, I cannot see why the Government should resist what they say is so obvious as not to be needed, but which many will think as I do, that this should be plainly asserted at the start of the Bill. It would give a reassurance to any citizen who hereafter reads it—God help him or her if he or she does—and it should be a duty on the Government, the Secretary of State and the chief executive of the authority to maintain a secure register that is,
	"secure against any unauthorised use or access".
	I rest my case on that and I beg to move.

Lord Crickhowell: Noble Lords will be relieved to hear that I do not intend to repeat anything I have said about the security issues that we have now discussed on a number of occasions, in particular the issues of hacking or otherwise technical breaches. Rather I rise to make the point that this useful amendment, which I support, refers to "unauthorised use" as well as "access". I am reminded that we are dealing with what is going to be a very large organisation, along with other organisations, managing and using the register. In addition to the risk that outsiders will hack into the system, presumably there is a risk that from the inside, individuals for whatever reason—it might be a financial one in the form of an offer made by a newspaper to get at information—might seek to misuse.
	I ask the Minister whether it would not be useful to include a further paragraph here which emphasises not only the importance of the technical matters we have already discussed but also the importance of ensuring that those responsible for the management of the system maintain the highest standards of probity and good management so as to ensure that there is no possibility of abuse. The Minister has given us full assurances on the technical aspects, which we all hope will prove to be justified, but I would be grateful if she made some comment about the management issues to avoid the kind of leakage or perversion of material that we have seen elsewhere. I cite, for example, leaks of material simply because individuals have a financial or other reason for abusing the system. We want to be assured that there is adequate provision for dealing with that circumstance.

The Earl of Erroll: While I think that on the one hand this provision ought to be unnecessary because it should go without saying, on the other hand, given that subsection (3)(b) refers to "secure and reliable", logically such a provision should go along with it. If you are going to say that, you may as well say this as well, simply to dot the i's and cross the t's. I feel that both provisions are aspirational rather than things to be put into legislation. This reminds me of a period in the 1960s. I recall my father's muttered response to a declaration made by Perth county council that the area around the house was a "rabbit-free zone": "They have as much hope of that succeeding as anything else". It is a good idea and perhaps it should be put in the Bill so that people can scream about it.
	A lot can be done. The credit checking agencies which keep highly sensitive information on people have a good record of monitoring the behaviour of employees, firing them immediately if someone in the snooper division detects any malfeasance. I do not know whether in the public sector one can behave in such a draconian way. I hope that one would. It is good to have such a provision. We need to ensure that police within the police are policing the entire system.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I support the amendment. In doing so, perhaps I may express some doubt as to whether some noble Lords opposite have ever digested the report on the Bill from the Select Committee on the Constitution. It merits careful study. I think it appropriate to put on the record one specific sentence:
	"But we nonetheless continue to believe that it is important to ensure, irrespective of the Bill's merits or the benefits claimed for it . . . that the scheme is conducted upon a strong legal basis and that adequate safeguards are in place to protect individuals from excessive intrusion into their affairs by institutions of the State or indeed by others—in other words, to 'future proof' it against the potential for abuse of the registration scheme by officials of the State claiming to act in the public interest".
	That sentence underlies our deep-rooted and abiding objections to the Bill. Until I am satisfied that the Government understand it and have taken it on board, I shall continue to be extremely hostile to the Bill.
	Perhaps I may quote another sentence from the report:
	"This is all the more important when the scheme envisaged will record in a single data-base more information about the lives and characteristics of the entire adult population than has ever been considered necessary or attempted previously in the United Kingdom, or indeed in any other western country".
	Since I have been in this House, the Constitution Committee has been regarded with great respect. It thoroughly deserves that respect to continue. I, for one, am not satisfied that the Government have given it the attention that it manifestly deserves. I warmly support the amendment.

The Earl of Northesk: I support the amendment. Like my noble friend Lord Crickhowell, I shall not repeat my earlier remarks. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, may be too modest in suggesting that the amendment is modest. As my noble friend Lord Crickhowell says, it extends to use as well as access. One of the most vulnerable parts of any secure IT system is internal: its potential unauthorised use by those with access to it. The amendment is useful in addressing that problem.

Lord Selsdon: I support the amendment. I am concerned about authorised use and access. I had assumed that some such provision would have been in the Bill. Who will be authorised to have access and use? Many foreign powers would welcome the opportunity for access and use. Since the noble Baroness pointed out that the United States is the most advanced in that field, it would not surprise me if even today people at Langley and other parts of the world were planning how they might have access in due course.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Perhaps I may assist the noble Lord. I simply meant authorised under the Bill.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: I strongly support the amendment. It would be a great improvement to the Bill.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I have added my name to the amendment. If I were to put forward any detailed reasons for why I support it I would be in danger of repeating speeches that I made earlier today and yesterday. That would not be appreciated by the Committee. It would be an abuse, even in Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, has made a very lucid case and I fully support him.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. I take the strictures of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, very seriously. He is right to draw our attention to those words and paragraphs from the report of the Constitution Committee. The Government take these issues very seriously indeed and we are absolutely determined to ensure that, in bringing forward the Bill, we reach the high thresholds expected of us in the way the legislation and the scheme will work once established in law.
	We have debated this issue already in some of the earlier amendments. Clause 1 is at the heart of the identity card scheme. It establishes the national identity register and it sets out the statutory purposes for which the register is to be established and maintained. The amendment focuses on the security of the register but it is unnecessary. The security of the register, certainly in managerial terms—the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, referred to this issue—will be of paramount importance and, as such, does not need to be set out in primary legislation.
	Furthermore—this is a very important point—the Data Protection Act, and in particular the seventh data protection principle, imposes already a statutory obligation on us to ensure that the appropriate technical measures are taken in order to secure the safety of the register. That is spelt out very clearly in the seventh data protection principle and is also made clear in Section 4(4) of the Data Protection Act 1998, which states:
	"Subject to Section 27(1), it shall be the duty of a data controller to comply with the data protection principles in relation to all personal data with respect to which he is the data controller".
	So it is implicit already in legislation that we should comply with that principle. The amendment adds no more to that obligation.
	Perhaps I may go into some of the detail of the issues that have been raised—the question of hacking and so on. The national identity register is not physically connected to the Internet or any publicly available network. The security control procedures designed to connect the NIR to application handling and identity verification systems are some of the most sophisticated currently available. These safeguards are designed to provide a defence in depth, as we have heard before, through distributed security architecture and are considered unlikely to be vulnerable to external attack while under appropriate management, audit and security operating procedures.
	It should be noted that to date—I know we have made this point before but it is important that it should be recorded again—there has not been a single recorded security breach or compromise of a government database which is protected in the same manner as that designed to protect the national identity register. No applicant or card holder information is ever transmitted in a manner that could expose it to the risk of interception or compromise. An advanced cryptographic and intrusion prevention scheme has already been designed to protect the supporting NIR communications infrastructure as part of the overall security architecture of the scheme. All security features designed to protect the NIR and supporting communications infrastructure have been developed in conjunction with the GCHQ's Communications-Electronics Security Group. The CESG, as it is known, is the Government's national technical authority for information assurance.
	The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, referred to management issues. In essence, he drew our attention to the potential abuse that might occur by virtue of the activities of agency staff. The proposed scheme incorporates the design principle that no one individual can change details directly on the NIR. Verification service traffic is one way, and does not access the NIR directly.
	It should be noted and understood that the content of the NIR is never stored in a manner that would leave it exposed to the risk of data extraction. A small number of communication links serve the database. These links are all encrypted using high-grade cryptography. There is no PC access to the NIR, and only a small number of operations staff with the highest level of government security clearance will be responsible for managing the uploading of information to the core database.
	Additionally, Clause 31 creates the offence of tampering with the register. A person convicted on indictment can be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison or a fine, or both, and on summary conviction to a prison sentence of up to 12 months. If we need reminding, employees would also be subject to normal employment law remedies. Disclosure would certainly amount to gross misconduct, and would be a dismissable offence by virtue of that.
	So only a small number of authorised members of agency staff would have access to the register. It will not be connected to the Internet, and outside bodies will not have access. This is a highly secure system. It is designed that way by all other government databases. We do not believe that this amendment aids or assists that. It is already implicit by virtue of the seventh principle of the Data Protection Act. Our argument is that this unnecessary amendment adds nothing to the Bill, nor will it add any further protection.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I am grateful to the noble Lord for what he said about the quotation I used from the Select Committee's report. I hope that he will take the opportunity to draw the Minister's attention to it, as she was not in her place when I read it. This report is important, and I hope all Ministers will have it constantly in their minds. I should like to raise two points with the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, about the speech he just made.
	First—I hope I heard him correctly—he said the intention of the amendment did not need to be set out in primary legislation. Did he mean that it was quite adequate to set it out in secondary legislation? That is the obvious meaning, but if that is not what he meant, perhaps he could tell me so.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I did not mean what the noble Lord inferred. I said that it was already there by virtue of the Data Protection Act, and referred, as noble Lord will recall, to the seventh data protection principle.
	My noble friend Lady Scotland will be more aware of the report to which the noble Lord refers than I am. I am sure that, like all other Ministers, she takes seriously reports produced by the Constitution Committee, because we greatly value its work in your Lordships' House.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: Very well. I accept with some doubt that the noble Lord did not in fact mean that it would be adequate to put this in secondary legislation, because that was the clear implication of what he said.
	My second point is that the Minister said there had been no leak from a similar government database. There is a first time for everything, and this database is larger and more sensitive than any other. I really do not accept what has been said. Leaks from government sources are all too frequent. The noble Lord may not take that too seriously but I am serious about it.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: The noble Lord makes a general comment about leaks. We are talking about secure data systems. I made the important point that there is no history of encrypted systems such as the one we are discussing being subject to hacking in the way in which some Members of the Committee, particularly noble Lords opposite, seem to believe will become a common occurrence. There is no history of that with any of the established databases which currently record national information. Measures, counter-measures, as it were, and more will be put in place to ensure that hacking does not occur with the new system.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: There is justification for having a declaratory clause at the beginning of a Bill. When the Scotland Bill went through this House, many people argued that the very first clause was unnecessary. It said:
	"There shall be a Scottish Parliament".
	Of course, it was unnecessary because the whole Bill was about the fact that it would be established. However, that clause has been more quoted, and has given more pleasure to people in Scotland, than any other clause in the Bill.
	This is a serious point and it seems to me that there is an argument for saying,
	"The Register shall be established and maintained so as to be secure".
	The Government believe that the register will be secure, although noble Lords argued about that point earlier. The noble Lord deployed many arguments to explain why it will be secure. However, a declaratory clause is a very good idea and would comfort those who have doubts about the Bill. It is a serious point and it was well made by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips.

The Earl of Erroll: I agree with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, and the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. The reason given for not including the measure is that it is covered under the Data Protection Act, and therefore it is unnecessary to include it. But, logically, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, should have supported Amendment No. 11 of the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, which sought to leave out the words "secure and reliable". That phrase is also otiose as it is covered under the same section of the Data Protection Act, so you do not need those words either.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I do not think that our arguments were different in that debate but I am grateful for the noble Earl's support on the matter that we are now discussing. The Government are often attacked for overloading Bills and legislation with far too many unnecessary words and excess verbiage. The noble Lord, Lord Peyton, frequently makes that point and is to be congratulated on encouraging us to keep things simple. However, if we were to accept the amendment suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, any other legislation that dealt with a similar process of data collection and retention would then have to have exactly the same formulation in it. The relevant measure is clear in the Data Protection Act and, as the Bill is drafted, the point that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, wants to ensure applies to this legislation is implied.

The Earl of Erroll: Then why not remove the phrase "secure and reliable" as the same reasoning applies to that?

Lord Maxton: I have had some difficulty in trying to follow this argument. Noble Lords opposite seem to live in a rather different world from the one in which I live. In my world dealings are based, perhaps wrongly, largely on trust and the idea that most people obey the law most of the time.
	As regards the technology, of course this will be an enormous database but that is now possible. In the technological world in which we now live it is possible to have such a database. In the past acres of accommodation would have been required to store the paper records. Incidentally, such a system would be considerably less secure than the computer storage of encrypted information. To my mind it would be much more profitable for people to hack into certain other government databases. Noble Lords seem to think that is a very easy process. I am no computer expert, but I know that hackers are clever people who can make a lot of money but do not break the law, because they are good computer experts who hack for fun and not for profit. But if it were possible, hacking into the passport database, the social security database or the income tax database would be much more profitable than trying to hack into the national register, for the simple reason that it would allow dishonest people to make money out of it—that is presumably a major reason why they would want to do it. I do not see how enormous sums of money could be made by taking information out of the national register, except by stealing someone's identity and then going through a long process.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I confess to being disappointed by the Minister's response. We were invited at the start of proceedings on the Bill to take part in a constructive debate in which the Government would listen to what was said. Everyone except the last speaker has spoken in simple and outright terms in favour of the amendment. It seems bizarre that the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, twice referred to the "paramount importance" of the security of the register, as did the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, yet we have nothing on the face of the Bill. This is only a two-line amendment and we are considering a 44-page Bill in which there is nothing to reflect that paramountcy.
	In contrast to that, the Government included a paragraph in the same clause which mentions:,
	"a secure and reliable method",
	for ascertaining facts. Yet, while resisting the removal of those words in Amendment No. 11, they are resisting the inclusion of those words in the much more important issue of the register itself.
	I do not wish to detain the Committee any longer, but I assure the Government that the amendment will be brought back, although I might reword it, and at the next stage I will be minded to seek the view of the House. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 16:
	Page 1, line 16, leave out paragraphs (a) to (e) and insert—
	"(a) of assistance to the Secretary of State in preventing or detecting terrorist acts in the United Kingdom or elsewhere or otherwise in the interests of national security;
	(b) of assistance to the Secretary of State in preventing or detecting serious crime;
	(c) for the purposes of preventing illegal immigration and enforcing immigration controls; or
	(d) for the purposes of securing proper provision of relevant public services.
	( ) For the purpose of subsection (4)—
	"relevant public services" means the provision of—
	(a) healthcare,
	(b) housing,
	(c) education, and
	(d) social security benefits;
	"serious crime" means crime giving rise to an offence triable only on indictment."

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: In moving the amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 140 and 274 in this group. I should make it clear that these are probing amendments, for which the reason will become clear. They were divided upon by my honourable and right honourable friends in another place on more than one occasion, but I do not seek to do so just at this stage.
	This group of amendments asks the Government to set out clearly the purposes that they intend to drive the setting up of the national identity register. Once there is clarity of purpose, manufacturers can design a card that is fit for that purpose. So, what do the Government see as the fundamental purpose of a card? Will it be an entitlement card for e-government services, a security card, or does it have some other primary use?
	In the debate leading up to the Bill and during the consultation process, the Government have claimed a variety of reasons for introducing the national identity register and ID cards. They include protecting us against terrorism, clamping down on social security fraud, tightening their grip on money laundering, reducing illegal immigration and reducing crime—although I note that at Second Reading on 31 October the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, at col. 13 of the Official Report referred specifically not to crime, but to "serious crime". But the Bill is very broad and refers simply to "crime". The list goes on and on. What the Government have not yet done, and I invite them to do tonight, is to state which of the purposes that they are pursuing is a priority, because different services and purposes demand different types of card and registration. The noble Baroness seemed to disagree with that and by this amendment I am giving her the opportunity to state why. The Government have not yet proved their case that their system of registration and ID cards will have all the beneficial results that they claim.
	The first three amendments invite the Government to state their priorities and I will run through those very briefly. Amendment No. 16 would change subsection (4) of Clause 1 which lists matters that all might be in the public interest. Taken individually or collectively they could all be for the public good: we all want our national security to be enhanced, crime to be detected or prevented, the laws and regulations concerning immigration to this country to be enforced and illegal working to be prevented and the rules relating to it to be enforced. Everbody wants the provision of public services to be maintained securely, efficiently and effectively, but it does not necessarily mean that this Bill is the right or the only way to achieve those outcomes. Our amendment tries to tighten the definition of the statutory purposes of the Bill.
	The Government's own Clause 1(4)(a) merely refers to national security. We say that national security should be described primarily in relation to terrorism. Our new subsection (1)(c) confines the purpose to preventing or detecting serious crime instead of leaving it open to all crime. I am simply making the Bill read in the way that it appeared the Minister herself construed it at Second Reading.
	We then go on to the more challenging bit of our amendments—challenging to me, not to the Government I hasten to add—where we go on to define serious crime as one which gives rise to an offence triable only on indictment. I say my amendments are only probing because I realise that that amendment is seriously defective in respect of Scotland—I say that knowing that I have expert Scottish colleagues behind me as well as on the Benches opposite. I realise that that amendment would exclude serious fraud, serious theft and serious assault in Scotland from coming within the ambit of this provision. It is only there as a prompt to ask the Government to approach their definition of what crime is to be covered by this. I recognise that if I ever did seek to bring this back on Report I would certainly need to redraft the amendment.
	I invite the Minister to explain how extensively the Government anticipate the use of ID card tracking to be used by the police in their work. Will card production be required from motorists who have been stopped for speeding? Will they in any way act as a deterrent to burglars and if so, how? Will the Minister explain what impact she expects 1(4)(c) to have on the prevention of illegal immigration? Are there not better ways of achieving that, for example, by increasing immigration controls at points of entry?
	What is the Minister's response to the briefing by the Commission for Racial Equality on these matters? It is concerned that the Government's integration agenda may suffer as a consequence of this legislation and its effects. The CRE says that the impact on communities where there are high numbers of irregular migrants has not been considered, except to say that it is "beneficial" unsupported by evidence. The CRE states,
	"With regard to illegal immigration and access to public services, it appears that the Government can achieve its aims without Identity Card legislation. There are provisions within immigration legislation to ensure that migrants have certain documentation."
	The CRC also points out that the recent pilot scheme aimed at Sri Lanka was not an unqualified success. Its reason is not just that at seven, the number detected was low, but that if there were a full race equality impact assessment it would indicate whether there are other, more effective, alternatives. It feels that the problem at the moment is that the Government have not yet published a full assessment. Can the Government indicate today whether they intend to do so?
	Amendment No. 16 also inserts new subsection (4) (a) to define relevant public services. I beg to move.

Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I want to raise a small point to be introduced on the back of the important matters which have just been raised by my noble friend. It is a Committee point, the devil being in the detail and, as we all know, there are many mansions in the detail.
	The scheme of Clause 1 is to provide that registrable facts are to be able to be ascertained whenever that is necessary in the public interest. Subsection (4) states,
	"For the purposes of this Act something is necessary in the public interest if, and only if, it is—"
	and then there follows paragraphs (a) to (e). The interesting fact and one that is possibly productive of future difficulties, is that one sees that in paragraph (a) it is,
	"in the interests of national security".
	In paragraphs (b), (c) and (d) it is,
	"for the purposes of the prevention or detection of crime",
	and so on. In paragraph (e) it is,
	"for the single purpose of securing the efficient and effective provision of public services".
	I would not expect the Minister to provide an immediate answer as to what is the distinction between the purposes and the purpose or between either of them and the interest. But it just may give rise to difficulty later and it could possibly be considered whether that might not be tidied up in the interests of consistency.

The Earl of Erroll: I rise to make a couple of points. I notice that this amendment has left out the prevention of illegal working and I wonder whether that is a good idea. I understand that the IND or the ACID databases are up to a year behind on their updating and so therefore it may be quite difficult until things like that catch up. The problem is the interface with other Government databases. If we are relying on this information to decide whether someone can work or not then all the information needs to be up to date—not just the NIR information but that on other Government databases as well. It might be wise to leave some of those out of this at the moment so that we do not suddenly find that some poor people get a work permit but they cannot verify it online—or whatever method is required under the proposals—and cannot actually get work for six or nine months later. Or we have a fallback system in which case the entire thing is a load of nonsense anyway.
	The second point is that all this is about providing public services. As has been mentioned several times during Second Reading and elsewhere I know that the Home Office has been talking to the banking community about this being a wonderful thing for opening bank accounts. But why is opening a bank account a public service, or provision of a relevant public service? I presume it comes under the preventing or detecting of serious crime; in other words, it is all being thought of as anti-money laundering. But we know that the anti-money laundering provisions do not work at the moment: because I believe they caught £46 million laundered through London last year as opposed to the several billion pounds which is estimated to have actually been laundered. We know that it is all pretty ineffective anyway and could really be disposed of without making any impact on serious crime at all. I do not see how that provision is preventing or detecting serious crime.
	If we are to make proper use of the card maybe we should be widening the said provisions to include what citizens want. How we do that I am not sure, but if we are going to have this card we might as well make it useful. I have not really thought it out, but it is a useful way of opening up the debate on the matter.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I would like to follow up on the intervention made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, and ask the Minister—and I am sorry that I did not give notice of this gritty question but it has only come to me in the course of the debate—whether the provision in Clause 1(4)(b) and the similar provision in the amendment, paragraph (b), the definition of public interest vis-à-vis prevention or detection of crime or serious crime, haul in the huge extension of disclosure of information in relation to public authorities which were brought in by Section 17 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. Many of your Lordships will remember that we had heated debates on that section. I particularly remember that at the eleventh hour the order came down the Corridor that the Conservatives were not to vote to delimit the effect of Section 17 to terrorism. I exempt the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, from that—she was furious about it. That was a huge extension of disclosure under our criminal law. My question is: does Section 17, and the extended disclosure which it gave in respect of a massive range of authorities and statutes, come within the ambit of Clause 1(4)(b)?

Lord Crickhowell: I take up a point that has just been raised by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, which concerns the definition of "public services". The subsection states:
	"For the purposes of this Act something is necessary in the public interest if, and only if, it is",
	and it then goes on in this context to say,
	"for the purpose of securing the efficient and effective provision of public services".
	My noble friend who moved the amendment defines what public services are.
	I have a new bible. It was provided to me last night by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and, as I said earlier, he urged me to read very closely this fascinating document produced by the Home Office. It is entitled, Identity Cards: An assessment of awareness and demand for the Identity Cards Scheme. Very helpfully in Appendix B, it sets out what it describes as the high-level objectives of the scheme. When we come to this particular objective, it states:
	"To facilitate fast and efficient access to public and private services, and prevent unauthorised access to public services".
	So we have reached the point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll. When I read the Bill, I thought that it referred here only to services provided by departments of state or public organisations and agencies. But, according to the Home Office's own words, it apparently refers to public and private services. If that is so, how does that definition fall within the wording in the Bill?
	I do not intend to delay the Committee on this issue but it might be worth noble Lords looking at the other description of high-level objectives helpfully provided by the Home Office. I shall quote just one:
	"To help disrupt the activities of organised crime and terrorism, which depend in part on the ability [to] use false and multiple identities, and travel undetected".
	That, again, is a little different from either the version contained in the Bill or that provided by my noble friend. But now that we have this bible and are urged to read it, I think that we need to have an explanation of the implications of that wording.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: When my noble friend Lady Anelay spoke to her amendment, I do not think that she said why she had omitted from it subsection (4)(e) about working or employment. Clearly, she admitted it deliberately but I do not think that she explained why, and I wonder whether she can tell us the reason.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: Indeed, but I think that my noble friend meant to refer to paragraph (d) on working or employment rather than paragraph (e). I felt that, as we had tabled another amendment which would cover that issue, it would be otiose of me simply to include it in this one. That is the only reason, and we will have the opportunity to discuss it.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: We have had a very interesting debate. I will deal with the substantive points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, but, first, I say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, that I have been looking at the point that he raised in relation to "purpose" or "purposes". I think that it will have to be looked at and I will come back to him on that.
	We need to be clear that there are a number of purposes for which the identity card scheme will be helpful. We do not seek to say that that list is in any way to be restrained by further and other useful purposes to which it could be put. I say to the noble Baroness that there is no competition or hierarchy in relation to these issues, but a number of purposes are of real importance.
	Amendments Nos. 16 and 140 and Clause 1 are connected with the statutory purposes and the definition of "public interest". The second statutory purpose of the national identity register, which underpins the identity card scheme, is to facilitate the provision of a secure and reliable method for identity or registrable facts to be verified or ascertained where it is in the public interest. The key is how we should define exactly what is meant by "public interest". As we have discussed this afternoon, the second limb of the statutory purposes of the identity card scheme is set out in Clause 1(3)(b).
	I do not think that during the debate anyone has disputed the fact that we need to define what the public interest test should be. But we should not overlook the first limb of the statutory purposes in Clause 1(3)(a) because, as I have already said, this identity card scheme is intended first and foremost to provide a means for people to identify themselves. I hope we all accept that not only will identity cards help to combat crime and the enforcement of immigration controls but they will also help our citizens to safeguard their identities. It is right to record that at present one of the most sought-after items from many suppliers is a shredder machine. That is because more and more people consider it important to shred personal details as it helps them to feel more secure and able to keep their identity safe.
	Amendments Nos. 16, 140 and 274 would make five specific changes to the purposes of the scheme. We cannot understand the reasoning behind all of them—or, at least, we could not until the noble Baroness made it clear that they were probing amendments which were not seeking to be exclusive in their effect but were intended as a means of stimulating debate. We believe either that they are unnecessary or that they would seriously undermine the benefits of the identity card scheme by changing the definition of "public interest". I hope that the noble Baroness will also accept that limiting the provision strictly to indictable offences, even in England and Wales, would unnecessarily restrict us in relation to a whole series of criminal issues which should be properly dealt with. I know that the noble Baroness, having sat as a magistrate and having been cognisant of those issues, would not wish to see that happen.
	We know, for example, that terrorists will try to use false identities in order to evade surveillance or arrest. One of the key benefits of the introduction of identity cards is that not only would such activities be very much harder but identity cards would assist the police and security services in the vital work that they do to combat terrorism.
	As a number of noble Lords know, identity and verification of identity is often a key to the success or failure of police investigations. But there are no new police powers in the Bill. Under PACE, the police must have reasonable grounds to stop or stop and search a person. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, referred to a person stopped for speeding. As is currently the case, a police officer will ask the person to identify himself. The difference under this scheme is that there would be far less scope for the person to give a false name because the police officer would no longer have to waste time in investigating it as there would be a safer means of doing so.
	I emphasise again that it will not be necessary for a person to carry his card with him. Nothing in the Bill would enable the police to demand that any individual produce an ID card.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: The noble Baroness has made the point a number of times and it is of considerable reassurance. Is she willing to give a general assurance that this Government will never attempt to impose the requirement that an ID be carried?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: Certainly, there is nothing in the Bill which would enable us to do so. Of course I cannot bind my successors in title. I can certainly say that there is no intention to do so. The Bill makes that quite secure. It is not possible. We absolutely understood that one of the things people on all sides of the House, both in this place and in the other, were really concerned about was the idea that they would have to carry the ID card with them at any point and that a police officer could demand to see it. Therefore, we have sought to make this secure so that it would not be so demanded.

The Earl of Erroll: What is wrong with producing a driving licence? It has my photograph, my signature and everything the police officer would want, including whether I am permitted to drive that car, which the ID card will not have. So that is the document he really wants to see—and it identifies me.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: That is a perfectly proper thing to say. Noble Lords will know that if you are stopped in the street regarding a motor vehicle incident the police officer is currently entitled to say "Produce your details to the local police station within a certain number of days". Nothing in the Bill changes that. Many people will find it useful. In order to avoid the necessity of producing documents later—perhaps identification—they can choose to produce the ID card. They will not have to, but it would obviously save a lot of time if it was used in that way. But it would not be compulsory.
	To come back to some of the problems we face, particularly in relation to terrorism but also in relation to how organisations such as al-Qaeda work, its training manuals require its operatives to acquire false identities to hide their terrorist activities. Judge Jean-Louis Brugueiere, who is France's top counter-terror investigator, was reported in the Times on 1 June 2005 as saying that identity cards will help Britain to protect itself from attacks by Al-Qaeda sympathisers. It is surely right that we should provide the police and the security services with the best support we can to help safeguard national security. That includes this Bill.
	However, the addition of the word "terrorism" to the reference to national security in Clause 1(4)(a) is unnecessary. Terrorist acts are crimes. We cannot get away from that. The Bill already provides for the scheme to be used in combating terrorism through the reference to the prevention and detection of crime. Preventing terrorism is also covered by the existing reference in Clause 1(4)(a) to national security. I add that the statutory purposes of the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ, as set out in the legislation, do not contain a separate mention of terrorism; and to suggest that it is needed in this context might cast doubt on whether anti-terrorism work was within the lawful activities of those bodies.

Lord Crickhowell: The noble Baroness makes a reasonable point about al-Qaeda operatives, but am I not right in thinking that in order to get the identity card that she wishes them to have, they will have to apply for a passport or a driving licence or apply to be on the register? It seems to me rather unlikely that any potential al-Qaeda bomber is going to do any of those things. So, until the whole thing becomes compulsory, which we are told will not be for some considerable time, there will be no impact on al-Qaeda operatives, will there?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: It is not just obtaining new passports. It will now be necessary for new passports to contain biometric data. The ability for operatives to act improperly will continue. What we are seeking to do, appreciating the challenges with which we are now faced, is to set in train a method of dealing with this both in the short and the longer term, which we believe will be truly successful. The whole lead-in time, as I have said on a number of occasions, will enable us, first, to establish the passports, as they currently are, under a voluntary scheme and then to ensure that the scheme has the integrity and soundness we will need before we make it compulsory. We will go through those stages. But, we see this as a current and long-term need. The sad truth is that we do not believe that the difficulties with which we are currently faced will simply evaporate in a year or two and make all this unnecessary. That is not the reality of the world in which we currently live. That is why I mentioned the issues in relation to GCHQ, which are set out in legislation, and the fact that this is a real issue for us.
	The second effect of the amendments would be to limit the usefulness to the police of the national identity register and the introduction of the identity cards by changing the reference from "crime" to "serious crime" and defining that to mean an indictable offence. We have dealt with why that will not be helpful. I see the noble Baroness nodding her assent to that fact. The reason we jointly—if I can take the noble Baroness's assent to that—would not think it wise to limit the use of the scheme in this way is that the public would think it very odd indeed if we seemed to be tying the hands of the police by limiting the use of the identity card scheme to serious crime.
	The noble Baroness referred to what I said at Second Reading—I think at col. 13 of Hansard. What I said then was quite right because it related to the provision of information from the audit log, which is set out in paragraph 9 of Schedule 1. I remind her of that. I have the extract here, but I am sure that if she reads it again she will see what I was trying to express.
	The definition "serious crime" would be very unhelpful. Combating serious crime is a priority, but everyone must accept that the ordinary man or woman is as much affected by lower levels of crime and will expect us to provide the police with the tools they need, including a national identity card scheme, to combat that crime.
	The use of the phrase,
	"giving rise to an offence triable only on indictment"
	would limit the use of the register and, we believe, simply not work. We already have a serious crime threshold, at Clause 20(4). That is for quite a different purpose. It is to provide extra protection to the provision of information from the register to the police about the records of provision of information at paragraph 9 of Schedule 1. That, as I said earlier, relates to the audit log of where and when a check of an identity card has been made against the register. I accept that that information should be given a much higher threshold, whereas it would not make sense for the provision of basic information to be subject to a "serious" crime threshold. The noble Baroness is right to try to make that division, but that is where we think it should be.
	The third point is that the amendment would limit the public interest in relation to terrorism and crime to assisting the Secretary of State to combat them. Of course the Secretary of State has a most important role to play in these matters. However, primary responsibility for fighting crime and terrorism lies with the police and the security services. It would be artificial and unhelpful to limit the definition to information,
	"of assistance to the Secretary of State".
	The fourth point relates to the change to the reference to immigration and the deletion of the reference to the enforcement of prohibitions on unauthorised working or employment. That point was raised by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll. While the use of the scheme to combat illegal working in breach of immigration controls would to some extent still be covered by the reference to immigration controls, I do not think that it would be helpful to make that change. The use of identity cards to combat illegal working should be spelt out explicitly in the Bill. I know that illegal working has been an issue which the noble Baroness has been very concerned to stop because of the abuse that it involves—often the abuse of human rights. I know that the noble Baroness has a degree of passion on that subject.
	Removing that reference would not help employers and employees to recognise the importance of that aspect of the identity cards scheme. It would also limit artificially the use of the scheme to illegal working in relation to immigration control. There are other sorts of unlawful working, and identity cards would help employers properly to identify their prospective employees as a way of combating under-age working, and would ensure that tax and national insurance deductions are correctly allocated.
	The fifth point relates to the definition of public services, which in the amendment would limit the scheme to health, housing, education and social benefits. I have no problem with the list of public services in the amendment. Our concern is that it would limit the scheme unnecessarily if we were unable to show on the face of the Bill that one purpose of the ID cards scheme is to help the efficient and effective delivery of all public services. That is what the taxpayer and, indeed, the citizen expects. There are many other public services for which the use of identity cards to confirm someone's identity would provide benefits all round, for example, when applying for a criminal records check for someone working with children or vulnerable adults, or when anyone applies for a driving licence. It would be wrong to limit the scope of the scheme in the way proposed by the amendment.
	We also believe that when identity cards are used to access public services, it would be much better to rely on the existing checks in the Bill. Clauses 15 and 16 mean that any regulation requiring an identity card to be produced to access a public service would be subject to public consultation followed by an affirmative resolution order. By restricting the statutory purposes of the scheme we risk restricting the usefulness of the identity card.
	The noble Baroness asked about the race equality impact assessment. We published a full assessment on 25 May this year when the Bill was first introduced in the other place. We sent a copy to the CRE, and have offered to discuss it with the commission. We believe that many benefits will flow to all citizens in the community because service providers will be bound by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2002. It is intended to establish an accreditation scheme so that only those private sector organisations that have been approved can run the checks, and the other issues that have been put in place will greatly assist.
	The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, and the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, again raised the issue of bank accounts. Opening a bank account is not a public service. A private organisation will be within the definition only if it is a public authority under the Human Rights Act, which is an organisation that performs public functions. The benefits to the private sector are encapsulated in the first limb of the statutory purpose in Clause 1(3)(a) referring to the convenience to the individual.
	Clause 14 controls provision of information to the private sector with the consent of the individual. Much of the debate yesterday was about consent, when and how it would be given, and so on. The important point is that consent will be necessary. We need to bear in mind the fact that, when someone currently opens a bank account, the bank is entitled to ask for various kinds of information to be produced to verify the person's identity. Quite often a passport and a series of other things are asked for. Banks ask for proof of identity. We believe that the ability to produce an identity card, which has someone's biometric data and a clearer means of identification, will assist in that regard. That is helpful and proper.
	I hope that I have managed to answer all the questions that were raised on the amendment. I understand that it was probing, but if there are other issues that the noble Baroness would like to explore, I shall be more than happy to write to her. I think that we have covered all the bases.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I hope that the noble Baroness will answer—not necessarily now—my rather gritty question on Section 17 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001.
	I listened intently to what she said about the enforcement of prohibition on unauthorised working or employment. She said that the measure would be welcome to employers, but how can an employer make use of the ID card system?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I apologise to the noble Lord for not answering his question, but I shall do so now. It had slipped my mind, so before I forget his second question I shall make a note of it.
	Section 17 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act is dealt with specifically in Clause 20 of the Bill. Information can be disclosed for those purposes. We shall have an opportunity to debate the issue later as we have specific provisions in relation to it. We also have specific amendments in relation to illegal working, which we shall come to later. I know that we shall have a wide-ranging debate on employers and employees.
	One of the most useful things will be identifying that the person is who he asserts to be. The card will do that. Secondly, it will provide information through the register on whether the person is entitled to work. We shall debate those issues later. If the noble Lord can cool his ardour until we reach that point, we shall have a fuller discussion.

The Earl of Erroll: The noble Baroness mentioned that the measure would prevent illegal under-age working among immigrants. She should be aware that apparently there is a disparity between the ages of those registered on the Home Office unaccompanied asylum-seeking children database and the same people registered with local authorities. Those complications will come out in real life, and we must be careful how we handle them.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I was not suggesting that under-age working was in relation only to migrant workers. It is a matter of general concern to ensure that those who are working are an appropriate age. I agree with the noble Earl that it is always difficult to verify age unless there are quite a lot of data. The reason for having registrable facts and the process of verification is to ensure that the first registration has cogent evidence that demonstrates name, address, age and those other matters. I understand the importance of what the noble Earl has said, and it is important to get the first registration right at that point.

Lord Crickhowell: The noble Baroness has made a very useful restatement of the role of the private sector, which I understand. But I am not sure that all identity service users in the private sector have taken the issue fully on board.
	Again, I refer to the interesting Home Office document, because it states that the users are positive towards the scheme, with 84 per cent of the sample likely to use the verification services and that they strongly support the scheme and will endorse that support by verifying identities. It is important that it is widely understood that although they may find it helpful, if the individual does not want to use it, they cannot go down that road. I slightly doubt that when they cast their votes in that way and gave their support, they were conscious that it was entirely a matter for the choice of the individual, not for identity service users. That is a point that must be got over widely because, confronted by a demand from a commercial organisation, there will be a tendency for individuals to believe that it may have some right to ask for it.
	The statement that the Minister has made is useful and I hope that that will be made clearer much more widely, because it is a very important distinction. I think that I got that on board before, but the fact that she emphasised it is important. Later, we shall probably want to consider how we deal with the whole issue and how it is approached to ensure that the system is not abused by commercial organisations that seek to give the impression that they have stronger rights than they have.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: We have made that clear to the service providers. In their experience—as banks and other lenders, in particular, but also as other service providers—it is usual that they get the assent of their customers. We just want to ensure that the people from whom they are seeking that verification are giving them high quality information. It is clearly valuable to them to know that confirmation comes from a sound source. There is also an understanding that business may well have to pay for that verification service. Notwithstanding those two clear points, business is enthusiastic.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. In particular, the noble Baroness was kind enough to refer to the contribution of my noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew of Twysden. I know that he is not in his place and I should explain that, at 6.15 pm, we have the meeting of the Association of Conservative Peers, so some of my noble friends naturally have to be there. However, I know that he would want me to say that he welcomed the Minister's comments that she would return to the issue that he raised about the distinction between interests, purposes and purpose. I should be grateful if she would consider that, write to my noble and learned friend, copy the letter to other Members of the Committee who have been involved in the debate and place a copy in the Library to assist our further consideration.
	The noble Baroness was also kind enough to go into some detail in response to the issues raised by my noble friend Lord Crickhowell. I agree with him; the Minister has made a useful statement about commercial organisations and private interests that we will need to look at. The practical issue in the amendments is that we will have to continue to agree to disagree on whether the Government have chosen the right or wrong way forward. I fully accept what she said about serious crime. That was only a probing amendment. Considering the further explanation that the Government have given on specific points today, we have gone as far as we can with this amendment. I would not serve the time of the House well if I return to it on Report. So in seeking leave to withdraw the amendment today I give notice to the Bill team that I shall not trouble the Government with this amendment again. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 17:
	Page 1, line 17, after second "of" insert "serious"

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: The amendment inserts into Clause 1(4) (b) the single word "serious" so that, in defining what is in the public interest for the purposes of Clause 1, which delimits the whole extent of the measure, we are concerned only with purposes of preventing or detecting serious crime. On the previous amendment, we have already had quite a bit of debate about that notion. I listened carefully to what the noble Baroness said and will think more about it. In legislation such as this, we are always in the business of drawing lines. She made the point that she felt that the line delimited by the definition of serious crime in the amendment was too far.
	On the other hand, to have no limit as to what crime engages those important and potentially intrusive powers is seriously inadequate. One could have an officious police force using a parking offence or not having a TV licence as entitlement to access the national register. They are both crimes. More seriously, in a public demonstration, the police could claim that there was the possibility of public order offences and claim to be entitled, under the provision of preventing crime, to go around photographing everyone on the demonstration and performing a facial match with the national register. Those examples may sound far-fetched, but who knows? As I have said many times, in this Bill we should not take chances with civil liberties.
	I am of the view, and so are my colleagues on these Benches, that we need a threshold beneath which the provisions of the Bill do not bite and above which they do. Hence my insertion of the word "serious". The definition of the word that I suggest in my amendment is that of the Bill itself. The noble Baroness referred to Clause 20(4). That refers us to Clause 43, which, in turn, defines serious crime—because it is used in another clause—by reference to the Regulation and Investigatory Powers Act 2000, Sections 81 to 83. For the benefit of the Committee, serious crime in the Bill therefore means crime that is either violent, involves substantial financial gain, or involves a large number of people in pursuit of a common purpose, where, were they convicted, they would expect a sentence of three years' imprisonment or more—on the basis that they had no previous convictions. That is the definition in the Bill and it is a substantial threshold to provide.
	However, we cannot just think of the convenience of the police in contemplating the amendment and the clause. There are hearts and minds issues in the Bill that those of us who are worried about them have tried to explain. We are especially concerned with ethnic minority groups and how they may be targeted if the Bill is too lax. I mentioned briefly before that there was a failure to have some such limitation in Section 17 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. That has left it in what everyone whom I know who is aware of it considers to be a parlous condition. I will leave it at that; we have already had a bit of a discussion on the matter; and look forward to hearing what the Minister and other Members of the Committee have to say. I beg to move.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: Much of our debate on the previous amendment refers directly to this one. I know the noble Lord does not expect me to repeat that debate. We do not believe it would be right to limit the use of the scheme in this way; the public would find it very odd indeed. The noble Lord rightly said that the threshold is set high. The reason for this is that we thought it was important to give the police and authorities access to the audit log, which would demonstrate how often and how an identity card had been used. It was proper to make sure that use was restricted to the most serious crimes in the way that we defined them. But, as I said earlier, crime of a lower level can often have a pernicious and, at least, a deleterious effect on wide swathes of the public. It must be right that the police, in the proper exercise of their duty, should be able to check identity with the register in a way that makes it easier for them to protect members of the public and to do their duty. To do otherwise would put an unnecessary impediment in their way. I know that that is not what the noble Lord intends, and that he has concerns but I remind him—particularly in relation to the changes made in the way in which we charge and the involvement of the CPS in the whole prosecution system—that we now have some extra safeguards and a really robust system to deal with these matters. We think it is proper to allow the police to exercise their duty and to have the benefit of information which the register can procure.

Lord Maxton: Are crimes such as shoplifting, taking and driving a car without consent—just for joyriding, not to sell on—breaking into a car to steal the car radio, in the terms of this amendment, serious crimes? Are they not all crimes which could be helped by the perpetrator having an identity card, or not having an identity card, to prove who they were?

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: The noble Lord, Lord Maxton, asks a fair question. None of those instances would be within the definition of serious crime in my amendment. They would be below it. It is a question of where you draw lines. He will understand by now that we are deeply unhappy about the ID scheme at all, at least in terms of it becoming compulsory. We have no problem with the voluntary system, but since the Minister posits most of her remarks on the basis of a compulsory system, I respond on that basis. We have deep misgivings for reasons which I will not begin to bore the Committee with now. The answer to his question is as I have given it.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I agree with the point made by my noble friend Lord Maxton; moreover, it is right that if we were to take the benchmark that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, suggests, we would not be able to capture identity theft. Those people who steal one's identity and use it for improper purpose, would be outwith the test that the noble Lord has given.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I wonder whether the noble Baroness is right. There are already provisions in the Bill—she mentioned them herself—which allow prosecution for abuse of ID cards and the system. You have the prospect of using other parts of the clause which I do not object to—national security for example. If the identity theft was in connection with that, then it would be within the purview.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I was not necessarily dealing with just the theft of the card or the offences in relation to the register. However, the acts preparatory to, or part of, stealing identity currently covered in legislation but outwith those in the Bill would not fall within the rubric that the noble Lord proposes, particularly in relation to the potential three-year sentence—because both would be likely. In any event, I understand that the noble Lord will not pursue the amendment at this point.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My amendment would not be the three-year serious crime provision. If one of the other limbs catches the offence then it is caught, fullstop. That includes the provisions in the Bill. As the noble Baroness says, I do not intend to pursue the matter now.

The Earl of Northesk: Can the noble Baroness clarify a point that the discussion on identity theft sparked in my mind? To what extent do the Government envisage that the scheme will have an impact on identity theft and fraud perpetrated on the Internet, where, in truth, the vast bulk of those offences are committed?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: We think that the provision of information will make such activity more difficult right across the piece. Once there is a better way of identifying individuals, there will be a system in terms of the information that one chooses to give. As the noble Earl knows, Internet crime exercises our intention increasingly and a ministerial group is looking at the issue. We acknowledge that we must develop better models for responding to that new area of crime.
	In response to an issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, the whole point is that the offence would have to be of a sufficient gravity before the police would be allowed to make an application to use the register. I took it from the noble Lord's amendment that, if the offence were below the serious crime threshold, the police could not make such an application. That is quite significant.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: The noble Baroness is partly right and partly wrong. If, for example, an identity was stolen, and that is a matter relating to national security, the provision would not apply. Similarly, the criminal provisions in the Bill are not subject to my "serious crime" test. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 18:
	Page 2, line 1, leave out paragraph (d).

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I speak on behalf of my noble friend Lord Dholakia. This probing amendment would delete paragraph (d) of Clause 1(4), which contains the category of purposes on unauthorised working or employment. There has been considerable debate about that already, so I shall be very brief.
	Again, we are concerned about drawing the right line. I am not yet convinced that one should drag issues of employment into this crucial subsection, which defines what is necessary in the public interest for the purpose of having access to the national register. As has already been said, the subsection—reasonably, in our view—includes the category of,
	"purposes of the enforcement of immigration controls".
	Certificates are now issued to asylum seekers confirming their right to move within the community so that they have a sort of identity card. I should be interested to hear what other noble Lords have to say because I have an open mind. Why, for example, should one not include other headings such as housing, transport, gaming and tourism? I beg to move.

Baroness Corston: I wish to emphasise how right I think the Government are to leave in this provision. When I was a Member of Parliament I made regular visits to organisations in my Bristol constituency. In one meeting with the United Bristol Healthcare Trust I was appalled to discover that, in the process of taking back into the trust the contracted-out cleaning services, the trust discovered that the bank account details of a large majority of the cleaning staff were identical. From this one can only conclude that these people had been brought into this country and were working long hours in our National Health Service for no wages; the money was being paid into another account. In his maiden speech at Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Soley referred to similar circumstances in his constituency. This provision will afford protection to people who are outwith most of the things that we take for granted.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: The amendment stands in the name of my noble friend Lady Seccombe, among others. In a debate on a previous amendment the Minister was kind enough to refer to what she called my "passion" to ensure that the appalling conditions people suffer in illegal working should not be allowed to continue. The amendment would ensure that any measures introduced with the objective of reducing, or altogether eliminating, illegal employment are done in a proportionate way, and that other methods should not be jeopardised as a result.
	I hope it will be for the convenience of the Committee if I say that I have told the Front Benches that I will not move Amendments No. 19 and 20 tonight. I believe that they would duplicate much of the debate that has taken place over the last couple of days, particularly today, on hacking. It might be better to look at a more focused amendment on Report.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: We have already had quite a debate on this and I will try to keep my comments brief. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, would remove the deletion of the reference to the enforcement provision prohibitions on unauthorised working or employment. While the use of the scheme to combat illegal working in breach of immigration controls would, to some extent, be covered by the reference to immigration controls in any event, we take the view that it would not be at all helpful to make this change. My noble friend Lady Corston made a very useful intervention on that point.
	Bona fide employers will want to know exactly who is working for them. And once the scheme is in place, the identity card will be the easiest way to check a prospective employee's identity and to ensure that, if a foreign national, he or she is entitled to work in this country. It will offer a further measure of protection to employers. It is worth saying that employers have, in the past, expressed the view that the measures they face in relation to illegal working have presented something of a burden to them. This will help them to work through that burden, if burden it be. We think it is a quite proper measure.
	The use of identity cards to combat illegal working should be spelt out explicitly on the face of the Bill. For example, paragraph (d) would also cover employment laws unrelated to immigration, such as prohibitions or under-age working. Again, we think that that is a benefit. Where people are forced into employment for less than the minimum wage, it will help enforce the law, and has value for that reason.
	I believe that we should not limit the public interest test, as set out in the amendment. For the reasons that my noble friend Lady Corston and I have made plain—and which the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay probably agrees with—I think the noble Lord should withdraw the amendment.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful to the noble Lord for responding to what has been said. I am not sure that the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, would be helped by ID cards. First, if an employer is in league with, or otherwise oppressing, workers—and it sounds as though this might have been such a case—I do not see how identity cards would come into it. Secondly, under Clause 2(3), the Secretary of State may provide that an individual residing in the United Kingdom, in the exercise of an entitlement to remain here temporarily, will not be entitled to an ID card in any event. So, while I am not saying that there are no issues where they might help, we may be exaggerating the degree to which ID cards will help in cases of improper employment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

[Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.]
	[Amendments Nos. 19 and 20 not moved.]

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 21:
	Page 2, line 4, at end insert—
	"(4A) For the purposes of subsection (4), the provision of a public service or services will be made more efficient and effective if, and only if, the Secretary of State can demonstrate, and certify in a report laid before Parliament, that, for the relevant service or services, the total cost to public funds and the total additional cost to users of the relevant service, which together will result from the establishment, maintenance and application of the identity card scheme to the service or services concerned, will be significantly less than the saving to public funds that the Secretary of State certifies will result from the establishment, maintenance and application of the identity card scheme to the relevant service or services.
	(4B) In calculating the costs and savings in subsection (4A), the Secretary of State must include costs to public funds and service users that would not arise, or would not have arisen, if a document were not designated under section 4 of this Act."

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: When I introduced our first amendment yesterday, I did not anticipate that it would lead to such an early furore on the issue of this scheme's cost. Noble Lords from both sides of the Committee soon seized upon the importance of that. Amendment No. 21 remains on the list only so that I can indicate publicly the kind of questions I hope the Government might be able to address more effectively by the time we get to Report. It is, therefore, very firmly in the nature of a probing amendment.
	It is important that the Government should be able to demonstrate clearly that the cost of the establishment and maintenance of the identity register and the ID card system are proportionate to the alleged benefits to be realised by the better control and detection of fraud in the public services, and the better delivery of those services to all. The Minister referred to the KPMG report, a concise version of which has been placed in the Library. She will have realised yesterday that we feel it would be appropriate if, before we reach this full debate on Report, further information could be made available, so that a proper assessment of the Government's position may be made.
	There was a certain amount of disarray on the Government Front Bench yesterday about the real figures for costs. I do not attach any blame for that disarray to the Minister. I attach it firmly to the Cabinet that has, as yet, not properly worked out the cost of the scheme or has done so and not seen fit to let those costs be known. I make no judgement on that; I simply wish to take part, in Committee, in a further examination of what the real costs are.
	Last week, I chaired an all-party meeting at which the two speakers were Mr Simon Davis, referred to earlier today by the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, and the Minister who has responsibility for the Bill in another place, Mr Andy Burnham. I understand that that was one of a series of hustings that they have attended. I was grateful to both of them for so clearly putting forward their relative cases to an audience of predominantly information technology experts. There were also several Peers there, representing both sides of the House.
	What concerned me most during that presentation was the feeling that Mr Davis was beginning to move closer to what he thought the Home Office figures were, only to find that Mr Burnham, during questioning, volunteered the plea that we should not take into account the integration costs because these would not fall upon the Home Office budget. That left the meeting somewhat open-mouthed; we need to look not only at the impact upon the Home Office budget when determining proportionality and cost benefit analysis but also at the impact upon the budget of all departments, because that may have an impact on tax paid by individuals.
	Therefore, if a proportionate benefit is not achieved—the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, was rightly interested to ensure that that benefit is taken into account—or if benefits outweigh the costs, one could say, "It's all fine and dandy to say that £30 will be the cost of an ID card if you don't have a passport and £93 will be the cost with a passport"—if those are the correct figures. However, that would be no use to individuals if the real costs of provision of the whole system were somehow loaded on to other departments and had to be borne by the taxpayer in other ways. That is a problem at the moment.
	I will certainly not go into the kind of detail I had intended because that would merely repeat some of the snippets of yesterday's debate. However, it is important that the Government carefully take into account points made yesterday from all parts of the Committee.

Lord Campbell-Savours: Does the noble Baroness accept that there will be a substantial increase in the tax take arising out of the introduction of these cards?

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I am pleased that the noble Lord asked that question because I was intrigued by his contribution yesterday. He appeared to say that the Inland Revenue would suddenly have extra information about people. I should be grateful if the Government would tell the House whether the Inland Revenue will have access to information about people—about their principal place of residence—and whether capital gains tax will be assessed on places they have not declared as being their principal residence. I am thinking of people with second homes who may judge one to be a second home and not the other. If I were to say yea or nay to the noble Lord, who asks a proper question, I would be prejudging who the Government intend to have access to the information and what information will exist.
	I had perhaps previously been falsely reassured by the Government that there would be no information on the register that would be of value in tracking down people who were trying to con the system. Let us face it, people who try to abuse the tax system abuse all of us. Perhaps I should declare an interest in that my father was an Inland Revenue tax inspector. I grew up thinking it was one of the dirty things in life to try to claim things wrongly. I suspect that both my husband and I overpay tax rather than being tax-efficient. That is the last thing we are.
	The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, asks a proper question but it is not one I am in a position to answer. I wish that I could, but the Government have not yet told us what information would be on the register that could be used by the Inland Revenue.

Lord Campbell-Savours: Does the noble Baroness accept that some people in society are completely outside the whole system of tax collection? They simply use our services and yet they are unknown to the state. Does she accept that in having an identity card such people would be drawn into the system even in the most minimal way which she suggests might be the case?

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: At the risk of taking the debate more broadly than I should—the noble Lord tempts me—of course I agree that groups of people are outside the system and I have done so for many a decade. Again, I declare an interest in that I started my early life as a student working during the vacation updating records in tax offices. They were not my father's, I hasten to add—there was no patriarchal system, but open application. I could certainly see even then that broad swathes of people were trying to operate outside the system. That is even more apparent when people bring in those from overseas and get them to work in unsafe conditions while not being part of the tax take.
	There is a different point here. Would such people be brought within the protection of the Inland Revenue system if they had an ID card? I return to the point that it depends what information is held on them and what access the Government say the Inland Revenue will have to that information. Until I know that, I cannot answer the noble Lord, but in many senses I am with him in wanting to reduce fraud on the Inland Revenue. I do not think that this is the way to do it but I wait to hear from the Government.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Does the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, really believe that those currently outside the system will be within it after these new measures are in force?

Lord Campbell-Savours: If they want to use public services, yes.

Lord Crickhowell: I had not originally intended to take up the remarks make yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. However, I was told by a former Treasury Minister who I consulted overnight that he thought the figures given by the noble Lord were hugely exaggerated. I refer to the amount the noble Lord thought would be obtained by the Treasury from taxpayers because of the introduction of this system. Reading again the clauses which we recently debated on the purpose of securing the efficient and effective provision of public services, many people will be surprised that what is being proposed in the Bill is a new Treasury method of dealing with tax evasion. I am not sure that it is one of the factors that has been fed in by the noble Lord, Lord Gould, and others to the assessments of public popularity.
	Furthermore, I do not believe for a moment that the revenue that will arise from the Treasury learning the names and addresses of people who apply for driving licences and passports—names they do not know already—will have anything like the consequences asserted and hoped for by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. However, that is a diversion from the central point I wanted to make.
	I want to follow the remarks of my noble friend Lady Anelay when she said that in no way did she attempt to blame the Minister for the somewhat painful afternoon we had yesterday. As a former Minister, I am acutely aware that government Ministers in this House are abominably treated by departments under all Administrations. They leave their Ministers to answer debates in this House, often facing people with great expertise, with inadequate briefs and information. Government departments do not understand the importance of the work of this House and they put Ministers in an extremely awkward and difficult position. I have the greatest sympathy for the Minister, who had to respond yesterday with an obviously totally inadequate brief.
	However, yesterday we established two facts: either the Government do not have the faintest idea of the total cost of the scheme; or, if they do, they are deliberately withholding the information from this House and from the public because they think it would make the scheme much less attractive. They repeatedly put into the public debate the figure of £584 million per annum for the Home Office to maintain the system. People may think that that does not sound a large sum of money and will be reassured by it. Indeed, the surveys which have been carried out by the Home Office, and on which I have made myself an expert having accepted the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, not only produce the figure of £584 million but emphasise that it is the current estimate of the charge to be made for this magnificent new service. But to take a 10-year figure and then divide it by 10 is a pretty odd way of arriving at a reasonable estimate of the real, annual maintenance cost. We know now that the capital costs of setting up the scheme have not been included. Perhaps even more significantly, we have not been given an estimate of the cost that will fall on all other government departments.
	Another piece of information to be had from this Home Office bible on which I have now become somewhat of an expert is that the cost of the sophisticated type of equipment that will be needed will be in the range of £300 to £600 for each item. When one starts to wonder whether the health service will want to make use of this service, I suspect that the billion-pound deficit that has now been accumulated by health authorities will become even greater. I referred yesterday to the burdens falling on the Foreign Office.
	So we are not, frankly, in a position at the moment to make comparisons of benefits and costs. That does not stop the Government making them. They take this totally meaningless figure of £584 million per annum and say, "But look at the great benefits we're going to provide". Until we have real figures in which we can put some trust as being realistic estimates, the whole proposition of comparison becomes impossible.
	That does not mean that I do not warmly commend my noble friend's amendment, which states that we ought to be able to know what the costs and benefits are before we commit ourselves to a scheme of this kind. That is clearly the case. Therefore, I will not ask the Minister suddenly to produce some new figures or even to repeat the defences which she offered to us yesterday. We know the current position. We simply say that before Parliament finally approves this measure, we should be given—we must be given—real cost figures so that we can make a judgment on the merits of the proposals that are being put to us by the Government.
	This is the job of Parliament; Parliament is there: to decide whether we are doing something that can be justified as being in the interest of the public and the taxpayer. Until we have those figures, I suggest that we are not in a position to do the job that Parliament is there to do. Therefore, I shall not press the Minister. We clearly will not get the information we seek tonight, but we are entitled to be provided with it in a full and adequate form before we reach the next stage of the Bill. If we are not, I hope that we will pass a whole series of amendments which will embarrass the Government and make life extremely difficult for them.

Lord Maxton: Perhaps I may make a comment on the costs of technology. My first mobile phone—I was one of the first Members of Parliament to buy one—cost me £2,500. I now get one free when I sign a contract which is going to cost me a couple of hundred pounds—if that—a year. A colour television is now the same price in cash terms as it was 20 years ago, and it is a totally different machine from the one which you then bought. That mobile phone had a battery life of about 30 minutes and pulled all my suits out of shape because it was so heavy in my pocket.
	One of the reasons why inflation throughout the western world is being held down is that new technologies are constantly coming on stream and constantly lowering the cost of providing technological services. They keep inflation down and will continue to do so. Therefore, the cost of providing this scheme, far from being X, Y and Z, will, if anything, be less than the Government are predicting because the new technologies involved in collecting and storing all the evidence and data required will be that much simpler and cheaper.

Lord Crickhowell: I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I have often made the kind of speech that he has just made on the subject of modern technology, mobile phones, calculating machines and so on. Of course, he is absolutely right, but that is not what we are talking about. If the noble Lord were to look at the cost of large-scale government IT schemes and the cost of the security involved, he would see that almost exactly the reverse has been true. We have only to look at what is happening at the current time to the hugely important National Health Service scheme to see that the benefits that we are all enjoying as we buy our mobile telephones, our calculators or our TV sets have not come through in the same way. In any case, that does not change our need to have current cost estimates from the Government and to be able to make real comparisons.

Lord Maxton: One cannot calculate what the cost of the technology will be 10 years down the line, because it is simply impossible to do so exactly. Therefore, the rough estimates that are being provided by the Government are right, though they will probably turn out to be less than they are predicting.

Lord Marlesford: I do not think, with the greatest respect, that the noble Lord has really got the point. The issue is not the cost of the technology, which we all know is advancing and reducing, but the cost of the management and the application of the technology. It is that at which the Government are so poor, and no department is poorer at it than the Home Office.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: We on these Benches are sympathetic to the spirit of Amendment No. 21. I do not want to belabour the Minister any more than did the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, because, as he so rightly said, it is not exactly her fault that we are not being given the very basic facts about the capital costs of the establishment of the scheme now—not in 10 years' time. Nor are we guardians of the nation's finances—that falls to the other place—but it completely defeats me how it could have allowed through to this place a Bill with no indication of the capital costs which are attendant on it, let alone the capital costs of integrating between government departments. Although the noble Baroness has several times sniped at the LSE report, with great respect, I do not see how we can dutifully do our work here without having an answer. Perhaps the Minister will tell the House whether what she said last night is the Government's last word; namely, that because of commercial confidentiality as part of the tendering process, the Government are unwilling to give us the capital establishment costs of the scheme.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: We have again strayed dangerously into yesterday's territory. I shall pay a few compliments and offer a few words of thanks before I respond. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. With her usual courtesy, she pointed us in the direction of the further and better particulars which she seeks. She did so quite rightly, and I understand and respect that. I accept that yesterday's debate, which included lengthy comments about cost, was not the easiest of debates. While I do not accept that we have got it wrong, it is certainly down to government to provide as much information as they properly and practically can to Parliament in making their case. We will endeavour to do that in the best way possible between now and Report.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Is the Minister saying that we shall have the capital cost details by the Report stage?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I specifically do not commit to that for very good reasons. I shall deal with the point now. We would be an exceedingly negligent government if we were to expose in the public domain information of a commercially sensitive nature. I see that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is in her place. Like me, she is a former employee of KPMG. I suspect that the accountants and those who have a duty to see that governments as much as anyone else stick to the rules would be pretty apoplectic if they thought we, as a government, were revealing information that placed us in a commercially vulnerable position. That would be quite wrong and, I suggest, a breach of our fiduciary responsibilities. It would also place the Government in a very vulnerable position indeed throughout the procurement process. It would be irresponsible of us to behave in such a way. However, that is not to say that we should not aim to put into the public domain as much information as we can and to validate it in the best way possible.
	I turn now to the particulars of the amendment. It seeks to insert into the Bill a new subsection the purpose of which would be to require the Home Secretary to lay before Parliament a report to demonstrate and certify for any particular public service that it will be cost-effective for that service to make use of identity cards and to calculate the costs and savings that would arise as a result of the designation of a document under Clause 4.
	There is already a provision in the Bill that requires parliamentary scrutiny under the affirmative resolution procedure of any proposal to designate a document under Clause 4. Also, where it is proposed to make regulations requiring a particular public service to be conditional on the production of an ID card under Clause 15, those regulations will need to be consulted upon to ensure that members of the public likely to be affected by the regulations are aware of the intention to introduce an identity card requirement and the reasons for it. They will also be scrutinised under the affirmative resolution procedure.
	As we have said, we have already published the estimated annual running costs of issuing passports and identity cards: the now often-quoted figure of £584 million per annum. It is perfectly correct to point out that these are issuing costs. They do not include the marginal costs to public services of checking identity cards. However, we should not fall into the trap of thinking that just because we are introducing biometric identity cards, every card check will have to be a biometric one. In many instances, as we have said on a number of occasions, a simple visual check will suffice.
	Where there is a good case for investing in identity card readers, of course that will be done. But it will be for each public service to determine its own cost-benefit analysis to provide for that. We would not expect the costs of issuing passports to be constrained by decisions on the use of passports by, say, the Immigration Service.
	I readily accept that the ID card scheme will take a number of years to roll out and that many of the benefits in, for example, combating identity fraud will be more easily realised once there is a high coverage of ID cards. We are working closely with other government departments to assess whether the benefits of identity cards will enable services to be delivered more quickly and efficiently, and to safeguard our enviable public services against fraud. We have already quantified the estimated financial benefits as ranging between a low figure of £650 million to £1.1 billion per annum once the ID card scheme is rolled out.
	I understand that in due course noble Lords will want to scrutinise individual proposals to designate documents under Clause 4 or to require identity cards to be produced to access public services under Clause 15. I am quite sure that the costs of doing so will be a factor to be considered at the time. That is a debate for the future. However, I do not think that it would be helpful to be constrained by the provisions in the amendment. For those reasons, I ask that it be withdrawn.
	During our discussion some doubt was cast over the reliability of costing assumptions. It is right to put on the record that the accounting firm KPMG has carried out what is in our view a robust, independent review of the identity card costings. It has concluded that the costing methodology as much as anything else is sound and appropriate for this stage of the development of the ID card scheme. The question has been put to me whether we can provide more information from the KPMG report. We will look at that request to see whether it is possible to do so without compromising commercial confidentiality, although clearly we will have to consult very carefully indeed with the authors of the report. I am prepared to say that that is something which we shall undertake to do.
	I have also been asked whether the Inland Revenue and Customs would be able to seek and use information. Yes, of course they will. I turn the attention of noble Lords to Clause 19(4). It makes the position very plain on the face of the Bill.
	I hope that my response clarifies the issues that have been raised as part of our debate. As I said at the outset of my response, we shall do what we can to ensure that we provide at all times during the course of the Bill's trajectory through this House as much information on costs as we reasonably can. However, we believe that the position we have reached is robust. I do not accept the allegations made by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, on this. I can understand why he might want to put forward his argument, but it is not one that I can accept. That is one of the reasons why we reject the amendment.

The Earl of Northesk: If I have understood the Minister's explanation correctly, it is possible that this scheme could come into operation and end up being used only by the Home Office. Is that correct?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: For the reasons that we have been putting forward in many of our debates on this measure, I think it is exceedingly unlikely that that would be the case. Many departments have already begun to identify cost benefits in wanting, at a future stage, to invest in reading and verification equipment and so forth. As I said in my contribution and as my noble friend Lady Scotland made plain yesterday in one of her contributions on the issue of costs, already even at what could be said to be this early stage in the life of the development of the ID card scheme, some of the cost-reduction analysis and research undertaken shows up very clear benefits. I think that our discussion about the Inland Revenue and its ability to access information probably highlights the help that the scheme will be to that department and, no doubt, to other enforcement agencies in recovering revenues lost to HM Revenue & Customs in terms of moneys to the public purse. So there will be benefits. It is inevitable and highly desirable that other areas of the public service should buy into those benefits. That will be of assistance to us and to the Government as a whole.

The Earl of Northesk: Does that not reinforce the point made so eloquently by my noble friend Lord Crickhowell that, in order for us to test the viability of the scheme, it is absolutely essential that we have some clue as to the costs of integration among government departments.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: At this stage it is not possible to identify all of the costs. It is also not desirable to do so, certainly in terms of procurement for the reasons I spelt out earlier and which I am sure the noble Earl understands. I am sure that he is familiar with procurement processes—how they work and how the market is tested. For those reasons it is not possible to identify all of the costs and to make the figures public at this stage.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. In my opening speech on the amendment, I was so diverted by the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, that I forgot to say the magic words, "I beg to move". However, that seems to have had no impact and we have had our debate in any case.
	While I touch on matters other than my response to the Minister, perhaps I may say that taking into account the progress we have made this afternoon—the Government might think of it as a lack of progress—despite all our best efforts, I should announce now that I shall not move Amendment No. 23 before what I hope will soon be a dinner break.
	Noble Lords have taken up my invitation to refer briefly to the difficulties faced by the Government yesterday on the issue of costs. The Minister has been kind enough to repeat yesterday's answers. Unfortunately, however, yesterday's answers were shown not to be adequate for proper scrutiny of the Bill in this House. As my noble friend Lord Crickhowell said, we need to have greater clarity on costs before the Bill is able to pass safely through this House.
	I am grateful that the Minister will consider carefully the KPMG report to see whether further information may be put into the Library so that noble Lords may have access to it. He is right to say that the amendment is only a rough vehicle for debate. I made clear that the amendment puts the Government on notice that by Report stage the House will anticipate better clarity regarding costs before it is able to judge whether the scheme is properly deliverable and a proper charge on the public purse. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 22:
	Page 2, leave out lines 6 to 33 and insert "information which may be recorded in the Register as specified in Schedule 1"

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: The amendment leaves out subsections (5) to (8) of Clause 1 as drafted. Subsection (5) would then state:
	"In this Act 'registrable fact', in relation to an individual, means information which may be recorded in the Register as specified in Schedule 1".
	I do not know whether I am alone in having difficulty in correlating Clause 1(5) with Clause 3 and Schedule 1. The noble Baroness stated earlier that the purpose of subsection (5) is to give a definition within which any information recorded in Schedule 1 is to come. In effect, it circumscribes the boundary of information for the purposes of Clause 3 and Schedule 1. I recommend some cross-reference in the Bill—at present there is none—between Clauses 1 and 3 and Clause 1 and Schedule 1. For the normal purpose of anyone reading the Bill—that includes a lawyer—the provision should state, "information which may be recorded in the Register" followed by a reference not only to Clause 3 but also to Clause 1(5).
	I am considerably assuaged by the thought that Clause 1(5) circumscribes for all purposes and at all times, subject to primary legislation, what can be placed in the register under Schedule 1. I referred earlier to one fact which seemed to go against that supposition in relation to principal residence. I still think that I am right. No doubt the noble Baroness will be kind enough to consider that issue.
	There are issues the other way. I note, for example, that paragraph 5 to Schedule 1 refers to "his date of death". An identity card for a dead man is a somewhat novel concept. None the less, I am sure the parliamentary draftsman has some obscure purpose in mind.
	Subject to those matters, for the next stage of the Bill, I shall return with some cross-reference amendments which will make life easier for those who have to construe this document. I have one question: I do not expect the noble Baroness to answer it now. I do not understand who decides under Clause 3 what registrable facts are to go on each individual's registry entry. Clause 3(1) states:
	"The only information that may be recorded in the Register is".
	Who exercises the discretion in respect of each citizen as to what information within Clause 1(5) is to be included on the register?
	Finally, in thinking more about this matter, I was brought back to the need for the register, and responsibility for the register, to be clearer in the Bill. I beg to move.

Baroness Fookes: Perhaps I may point out that if Amendment No. 22 is agreed to I cannot call Amendments Nos. 23 to 45 inclusive by reason of pre-emption.

Lord Crickhowell: I shall refrain from making comments which I could have done on the amendment. I prefer to make them when we debate Amendment No. 24 and later amendments, which I understand will be after the break. I note at this point the remarkable fact that an individual may have 12 different numbers recorded on the register as a result of the legislation we are passing. I admit that that is an exceptional circumstance and will involve people entering the country and others who make application. Many people will have a large number of identifiable reference numbers entered in the register. I believe that that says a little about the nature of the Bill we are passing.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I thank the noble Lord for thinking again about the amendment. I understand what he says about the connection not having been made in relation to Clause 1(5) and Schedule 1, and that he wants to think about that and return to the issue. I shall also be happy to write to him about why we believe that Schedule 1 is at present consistent with Clause 1(5). I have indicated already the broad parameter but I am conscious of how long these matters seem to have taken in debate. It will be convenient if we take soon a short adjournment.
	It will be the Secretary of State who decides what information is to be put in each entry. Not all the information would be relevant for each individual. For example, immigration documents or drivers' numbers are not necessary for or relevant to everyone. We think that it plays a useful role to have that framework for Clause 1(5) because it indicates the outer limits and means that it constrains other issues which could possibly come in by way of order and affirmation or negative resolution. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has approved the affirmative procedure for adding and the negative procedure if we wish to remove something from the schedule, as appears appropriate.
	I hope that for the time being that satisfies the noble Lord. I shall sit down in the hope and aspiration that no one will ask me anything before I do so.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I thank the noble Baroness for that response. The only issue that arises—I may have mentioned it earlier—is the confusion over adding matters to the schedule. There does not seem space. The schedule already carries all the information that it could carry within the parameters of Clause 1(5). One of the issues about which the noble Baroness may be kind enough to write to me is where the Government see room for any additional information given that the whole of Clause 1(5) already seems to be in the schedule.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: We understand that this whole area may develop quite quickly and that the way in which we store biometric data and transfer information may change dramatically in the next five or 10 years. For example, looking back to where we were before the age of the fax machine and the computer—which was not very long ago—I can remember having an interesting debate in my chambers about whether we should acquire a fax machine because no one else had one. After a lengthy debate lasting a number of hours, we finally said that we should have the courage to invest in this piece of equipment, which may or may not prove to be useful.
	So bearing that in mind, and knowing how quickly technology has developed over the past 10 years, it is likely that we may wish to include in the schedule other modes of communication which have not as yet been invented. That is an example of why we need to have latitude and why it is important, even with those increments, that we should have Clause 1(5) to constrain the use to which we put new technological and other developments.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: That is extremely helpful. I take for granted the need for technical additions. I was referring to Clause 3(1)(a), which relates to what I call the real information about individuals. I invite the Minister, if she would be so kind, to let me know what room there is for further information to be put in the schedule, given that it seems to take up the whole of Clause 1(5) already.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: The final part of Clause 3(3) states:
	"there is to be a conclusive presumption for the purposes of this Act that the information to which the direction relates is accurate and complete information about that matter".
	Is that wise? Would not the word "presumption" be perfectly adequate? If for any reason—and I cannot immediately imagine one—there was an issue in court where the accuracy of a fact that had been recorded was shown to be nonsense, would it mean that the court was bound by something which was completely inaccurate and consequently might find it very difficult to do justice? The wording seems to be unnecessarily strong and the word "presumption" would probably be sufficient.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I understand why the noble and learned Lord has raised this point. The reason for inserting the word "conclusive" is that we anticipate—and we have framed the legislation to reflect this—that great care will be given to the registering of any fact. The integrity of the system will depend on its accuracy and its ability to identify each individual placed on it. Having done that, the import will be to ensure that it has a "conclusive presumption" for the purposes of the Act. I shall certainly consider this issue to ensure that that is the most felicitous way of expressing it. But I know, as does the noble and learned Lord, that a presumption is ultimately still only a presumption. I shall come back on the issue, but the reason it is drafted in that way is because of the robustness and soundness that we hope the register will have.
	I have further assistance which states that, for the purposes of the Act, the Secretary of State can withdraw the conclusive presumption if it proves to be wrong. But the purpose of the revision is to protect people with new identities—for example, those in the witness protection programme.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: I am grateful to the noble Baroness. If she will consider the matter again and look round corners, I could not ask for more.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I shall be very happy to do that.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Even this Parliament cannot legislate that a fact is not a fact for the purposes of criminal proceedings. The Human Rights Act might have something to say about that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: It might be for the convenience of the House if we move on to the next business. I therefore beg to move that the House be resumed. In doing so, I propose that we re-convene to consider the Bill further in Committee no later than 8.30 pm.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	House resumed.

Music Manifesto

Lord Harrison: rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what further action they will take to implement the 2004 music manifesto, aimed at delivering musical opportunities for young people.
	My Lords, I was lucky. I was taught at school to sing, to dance, to play the cello, and so developed a deep and abiding love of music. I profited from inspiring music teachers, including Mr—later Professor—J F Paynter, whose school production of "Dido and Aeneas" included me, warbling in the alto register and improbably dressed as one of Dido's huntresses. Even today—at bus stops, bowling greens and in the bath—I intone, now with basso profundo, to those in astonished earshot tunes from Purcell's baroque masterpiece. Later, as a student, with a guitar, I hitch-hiked on the Continent and developed an enduring respect for Europe's history, culture, politics and music. Indeed, language and music were my ever-handy passports.
	I was one of the lucky few, but what of young people today? Do they enjoy the same flying start that I had? Publication of the music manifesto and its recent follow up—report No. 1—provide an opportunity to assess whether its five stated aims and three proposed core work programmes will catch the ear of today's young.
	At the outset, may I thank all those who will be speaking today, so many of whom have been intimately involved with the manifesto, and the Minister, who has announced even this morning the £2 million to be made available to the Pathfinder's programme of the music manifesto? I congratulate the Government's bold initiative in bringing together such disparate stakeholders, which has been a stunning success. The 60 original signatories have already risen to an impressive army of 360. That my remarks today will concentrate on the unfinished agenda of the manifesto in no way detracts from its auspicious start and my admiration for it.
	To most of us, music is indeed a second mother tongue. As such, it is best learnt early. Indeed, we are told that the first organ to develop fully in the womb is the ear. But, in today's general art scene, it is in the pre-school years that the growing child is least well served, including in respect of music appreciation. Only one in five of our established arts organisations makes any kind of provision for under-fives. This cannot be right.
	As for primary and secondary school music provision, too many music lessons take place in classes unfit for purpose. Music is deemed a peripheral subject and is consigned, inappropriately, to the schools' peripheral areas. The Government's active PFI building programme has made great strides, but more needs to be done to locate music in its proper teaching environment and to overcome the practical problems with which music staff deal on a daily basis?
	On a more optimistic note, can the Minister elaborate on the opportunities for children's formal and informal music education if the proposed eight-to-six school day is indeed introduced? Will my noble friend also tackle head on the fears that any proposal to diminish the role of LEAs in school music provision will have, necessarily co-ordinated on an authority-wide basis.
	On a brighter note, will the Minister report on the successful gold pilot schemes in 13 authorities in the Wider Opportunities initiative promoting first access to music? Will this scheme be made available to other LEAs, and if so, when? With regard to the central issue of financing the music manifesto, will my noble friend spell out transparently what resources the Government believe are needed to fulfil the aims of the manifesto, and how much new money has been set aside for these purposes?
	How do the Government rebut the rebuke of authorities such as Rochdale, which underscore the fact that the recent welcome extra provision of £10,000 for LEAs scarcely allows for the appointment of half a music teacher? Nor does this respond to the QCA's complaint that some authorities set aside fewer than 10 minutes of their timetable for music education. Is the lack of finance the root cause of our failure to implement David Blunkett's 2001 pledge later in the White Paper to provide every primary school child with access to instrumental tuition? Will my noble friend report on Scotland, where I understand the Scottish Executive have pledged £17.5 million to fulfil that very same purpose by 2006?
	The mention of teaching leads me to music teachers, the sine qua non of music education. Interestingly, music teachers are often those who most embody the ideal of the dedicated and devoted schoolteacher, despite the besetting challenges of teaching music in many of our schools. Indeed, like a headteacher, the enthusiastic music teacher has the power to transform music into the most vibrant and most loved subject in the whole school—so much so that I characterise music as the beneficial Trojan horse of school education, in its capacity to inspire learning in the sometimes reluctant child. Heads should cherish and deploy those music teachers, because of their power to persuade and cajole the growing pupil in a way that eludes teachers in other disciplines.
	What more can the Government do to enhance the role, career path, pay and conditions of music teachers, and to aid and abet non-specialists assigned to music-teaching tasks? If a core task of the music manifesto is indeed to recruit a vibrant workforce, can we afford to let formal teaching qualifications stand in the way of recruiting such music leaders? Will my noble friend comment on the exclusion from schools of those holding only music college teaching diplomas? What more could be done to entice into our schools those outside who possess considerable musical skills? Often retired or underemployed, they would willingly contribute to teaching if encouraged to pass on the baton of their musical knowledge. This silent army should be brought in to sing.
	Will the Minister also look at the postcode lottery of music tuition fees? Worcestershire, for example, charges £36 an hour, compared to neighbouring Herefordshire's £22. Are these not themselves a function of even greater disparities in the general funding of music in schools? Sheffield's budget of £1.15 per pupil looks very pale next to Manchester's munificent £13.75.
	As the music manifesto readily recognises, formal music education must be enhanced and complemented by initiatives for informal learning. I worry here too, though. I note, for instance, the closure of Reading University's music department; the £30 million shortfall accrued by several London orchestras; the decline of church music; and, dear to my heart, the loss of music and collections of music scores from our public libraries.
	This leads me on to the primacy of classical music as the bedrock of musical tradition. It holds a special, perhaps unique, place in our affections, but, as one who also celebrates many other forms of music, I suggest the dispute is sometimes rather sterile. Most forms of music have their own disciplines, and any one form may act as a window of perception through which the growing child enters the many mansions of music.
	In conclusion, I ask my noble friend to ensure that the music manifesto applies throughout Britain, in rural towns and areas as much as in metropolitan areas. I also ask him whether he is satisfied that policy-making for the future is grounded in enough facts and figures. Too often we rely on anecdote, and I hope he will feel it within his brief to be able to ask for research to be done in this area. In this way we can build upon what has been presented to us with the manifesto, whose bold and promising chords we celebrate in your Lordships' House tonight.

Lord Moser: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for giving us this all-too-rare opportunity to talk about the arts, let alone music. The tone of my remarks will be set by the German philosopher Nietzsche, who famously said—and I translate—"Life without music is a mistake". This is one mistake I have not made in my own life.
	In our own musical scene there is now much to be proud of, but not time to talk about. For a long time the worry has been music education, so I warmly welcome the music manifesto. At the beginning there was some concern about whether it was just words, but it has turned out to be much more than that, and to be part of what the Government have achieved to improve the situation—which the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, has had so much responsibility for. The new report from the Manifesto Champion, Marc Jaffrey, is extremely impressive; full of passion, vision and facts. It does not skip facing the main issues.
	I want to remark on a particular project, in which I must declare an interest as its chairman, that points in exactly the same direction as the manifesto: the Paul Hamlyn Foundation project called Musical Futures. This is based on three pathfinder action research projects in Leeds, Nottingham and Hertfordshire, all aimed at finding innovative ways of widening opportunities for children ages between 11 and 19, within and outside schools. We are creating models, we hope, that can be followed throughout the country. I have great hope that this project, which is in conjunction with Youth Music, will make a major contribution.
	In welcoming the music manifesto, especially the way it will change public interest in, and attitudes towards, music and music education, I shall, however, in this short speech, pick out the three priority areas on which I hope the manifesto will lead to government decisions. The noble Lord has already touched on these.
	Without doubt, the top priority is to improve the teaching of music in primary and secondary schools. It is not acceptable that some teachers who teach music cannot read music; nor that we are losing recruitment, even in the primary sector. Music teaching has to be improved, both in numbers and quality.
	Secondly, I refer to the situation in secondary schools. Primary schools have improved considerably in recent years in this regard, thanks partly to the Government. However, in secondary schools the situation remains fairly dire. Progress has been made in a number of schools and there are always good examples but it is not acceptable that only 8 per cent of children continue to study music after the age of 14 when compulsory music tuition ends. That is a sad reflection on the scene.
	I hope above all that the music manifesto, which is such a brave innovation on the Government's part, and is now well run by Marc Jaffrey, will not only be backed as a manifesto but that the Government will respond to the challenges that they have stressed. To my mind the top priorities to be tackled are teaching, secondary schools and the worry regarding local music services, on which much depends. I worry about the future of those services in view of what is going to happen to local authorities following the publication of the White Paper.
	In conclusion, the manifesto constitutes a campaign and is to be welcomed as such. All credit is due to the Government for launching and backing it. However, its real success will depend not only on whether it persuades the music world, comprising schools, conservatoires, orchestras and so on, to do even better but also on whether it persuades itself to do better. The manifesto is no substitute for taking brave and generous decisions on education, to which it points, and on the arts. There is much to worry about in the arts. There is still much underfunding, cuts in the Arts Council's grant and the latest, potentially crippling threat to orchestras if the Treasury's national insurance measure is imposed. In welcoming the Government's initiative in the form of the manifesto, we must remind all departments, including the Treasury, that a campaign is a means to an end and that the end is a strong and, I hope, generous government decision regarding the arts, including music.

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall: My Lords, first, I thank my noble friend Lord Harrison for introducing this debate on a very important subject. He puts some of us to shame with the assiduous way in which he pursues such issues. I should also declare an interest as a trustee of several organisations with music at their heart, in particular the Roundhouse, to which I think my noble friend the Minister may refer later, as it is one of the partners in the new Music Manifesto Pathfinders Programme which I believe he launched earlier today. We look forward to hearing more about that.
	I made my maiden speech in your Lordships' House almost exactly six years ago and I spoke on that occasion about my own early education, and how fortunate I had been in attending a school—a state-funded village school—where all the arts, and especially music, were a natural part of our daily lives. As a result, although I am a less than wholly competent musician, I have a lifelong—so far anyway—enthusiasm for music which was germinated in me at a very early stage, and I thank God, and whoever was responsible for providing it, every day.
	By the time my own children were growing up, the picture had changed. Music had slipped to the status of an "extra". Tuition in instrumental playing was either unavailable or provided only at very considerable expense and many children of my children's generation went through their whole school lives never making more than the most rudimentary acquaintance with an art form that was around them every day in shops, their homes, clubs and on radio and television. It is there, around us. However, they did not know anything about it other than whether they liked it or not, which is not a bad thing to know but it is not the whole story. That seems to me to have been a betrayal of a whole generation. Therefore, it is particularly gratifying to me to see that, finally, a combination of political commitment to the value of music education and the investment of serious money has begun to make a real difference. I absolutely take the point made by both previous speakers that resources are a serious issue, but none the less money has been made available. The introduction of the music manifesto was a really significant statement of intent from the Government, but delivery is always the tough bit. The report we are discussing shows that some progress has been made in the first year, and points the way forward to specific developments in the next phase of activity. I want to concentrate on one initiative that is particularly close to my heart.
	Your Lordships have already heard the noble Lord, Lord Moser, mention the organisation Youth Music, which is a delegate distributor of an annual £10 million of lottery funds. It aims to benefit children and young people with least access to musical opportunity—more than 1 million have so far been involved—mainly up to the age of 18, but sometimes beyond. Most of its activities take place outside school hours—which, as the report points out, is often crucial in getting young people to engage with musical activities. Youth Music is one of the most important of the many organisations through which the pledges in the Music Manifesto are being made good. Youth Music had already declared singing as one of its own priorities over the next five years because, as it points out, singing is the most easily accessible medium for music making. It can involve large numbers, it is a support for instrumental learning, it is a powerful means of expression and it is cheap. Youth Music has undertaken to lead work on the development of singing as one of the three new priority strands of work arising from the manifesto.
	Everyone can sing and pretty much everyone does. Even those who swear they are tone deaf—a dubious diagnosis in my view—will still venture a few notes in the bath or will sing along with the radio. Singing is something children do naturally from an early age, but they must have encouragement and support if they are to get real benefit and long-lasting enjoyment from it. They need confident, inspiring leaders; they need a stimulating and varied repertoire; and they need the opportunity to sing in a variety of styles, as my noble friend Lord Harrison pointed out. Boys, especially, need to be encouraged to keep on singing beyond the point when their voices break and not to see it as something "wussy" that they should not be doing. I look at the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who chairs the parliament choir when I say that boys especially need to carry on singing if they are tenors.
	Grass roots participation by children and young people in communities as part of our upcoming Olympic celebrations is one of the ways in which we hope that more children and young people will become involved in music in the future. When my noble friend replies to the debate I hope he will assure us that Youth Music's resources, along with all the other organisations that need resources to deliver the manifesto commitments, will be maintained at least at their current value—I stress value rather than cash—so that the splendid work it is doing can be sustained.
	Will my noble friend also say something about what more the Government can do to encourage those responsible for training young musicians to extend the opportunities for students to contribute as broadly as possible to music education, and to see it as a vital extension to their range of skills rather than an admission of defeat? Much good work is already going on in colleges and conservatoires but more is necessary. I am sure that other noble Lords will touch on that point.
	I finish by commending to your Lordships the excellent piece in the report by the distinguished composer, Howard Goodall. I intended to quote from it at length but I do not have time. I will just say that he talks about the things which are important to have to get people to engage with music. One of them is enthusiasm. One of the things that is no good at all in terms of getting people to engage with music is indifference. For too long music was regarded with indifference by politicians. At last we have a Government who have put music firmly on the agenda. I salute that commitment. Long may it continue. I apologise for going over my time.

The Lord Bishop of Worcester: My Lords, I do not know whether I correctly interpret the look on the face of the noble Baroness on the Government Front Bench but I believe that she is concerned about the length of our speeches. It was very kind of her not to make that point strongly before a cleric rose to speak. I am grateful for that.
	I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, not only for initiating the debate but for delivering a speech of which my only criticism was that he did not sing it, which would have been much more to the point.
	At the risk of saying something that will be recognised by one of the noble Baronesses on the Benches opposite as having been said by me before in a different setting, the sight of young people attentive to their music, to their conductor and to the common activity of playing is inspiring in a way that almost nothing else is. We must be honest: we have been extremely short-sighted during a mechanistic period of education, in which the national curriculum, a concern with vocational education, making people more marketable and so on led to a downgrading of an area of learning, of education and of natural activity that, with hindsight, should have been given much greater importance.
	It is not even sensible, if economics and employability are our main concerns, because music is a very substantial part of our economic life. It is not even clever if we had been concerned to stop young people gravitating towards anti-social activity, because there is nothing calculated to draw them together in a focused manner more than music. It is not very clever to have reached a position where young people were spending more on music than on almost anything else, while liking school music least of all. I salute those who have come together with the music manifesto and with all that has followed from it in moving things on.
	If I may do something, which, if this were not the subject of the debate, I would call blowing my own trumpet—but I shall not—I would say that the Churches and the faith communities have had a real influence in this area down the centuries. There is nothing more important in relation to faith communities other than the Christian one that they should nourish and be put in touch with the musical inheritance that is basic to their culture.
	Regarding the balance and priorities of the curriculum, one of the difficulties that Church music faces is that, as we have experienced in Worcester recently, it is extremely difficult to encourage state schools to make children available for the time that it takes to train as choristers. You will not do that unless you change people's sense of the priority of music in the curriculum. That could be a significant fruit of this manifesto.
	Funding underlies much of what has been said. I am glad about any money that is made available for music. I salute it. I am delighted. But we must be clear that there has been a massive withdrawal of funds from this area—that is the real problem: the big money comes from prioritising music education in the budgets of schools. If schools are not in a position to do that due to other pressures on the curriculum, they will not do it. And if they do not do it, making bits and pieces of other money available will never compensate for the large tranche of money that has been withdrawn.
	So I salute the manifesto. I salute the speech with which this debate began, and the speeches that have followed. I would like the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, to know that I heard what he said about Worcestershire and I shall pursue it. One can learn about local things in debates such as this. I am glad that we are having this debate and I salute the Government's part in it, but I want the manifesto to be as widely owned and as well funded as possible. It gives young people a sense of their own self-transcendence and the possibility of achieving something by working with others in a close and focused activity that they have deep in their bones anyway.

Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Harrison on securing this debate. It gives us a good opportunity to discuss an important issue. I declare two interests: first, I, too, am a trustee of the Hamlyn Foundation, and, secondly, I am a member of the board of the Performing Rights Society. I congratulate all those who have worked to bring the music manifesto to life and my good friend David Milliband, who as Minister for school standards, originated this, drove this through and collected around him a band—if I may use that term—of active and good people, who have turned his idea into a reality.
	People have talked about the importance of music and we all know about the need to be fulfilled, what music does to us as people and what it is like to be without music. I wish to add two further points. We live in a time of a real creative revolution. We have been through the industrial revolution; we have been through the technological revolution. This skill set will drive our nation, both its economy, in terms of the £5 billion music industry, and the skills that we will need to build the type of society that we want—our creativity—in a way that has never happened before. We should not lose sight of the role of music in developing those creative skills that will be good for people as they become adults, not just in continuing their love of music, but in being able to contribute to wider society.
	I always felt strange when I visited schools when I held previous posts. Two things happened. I knew the reality of music education in schools. I knew that we had been through a bleak time. I knew that there was too little money. I knew that children were not spending enough time on this important area of the curriculum. But what I saw in many schools was the finest music that I had ever seen. I also knew that it was better music than that which existed when I was a teacher and far better than when I was a pupil. I used to worry that, in the fully justified national angst about the lack of good quality music education right across the schools sector, at that time we did not give sufficient credit to the teachers who kept the flame burning during those dark days and who delivered a quality of music education and performance, throughout all age ranges, that they and we have a right to be proud of. Somehow, the celebration of that good work tended to be lost.
	I suspect that this is one of our first debates where we have been able to talk about steps having been taken along the road. We must assume a careful balance between not being complacent—in no way are we nearly there and the place of music in schools is not yet secure—nor is giving credit to and recognising the progress that has been made. Unless we recognise that progress, we will fear that we cannot achieve it. We need to give the system pats on the back.
	I pay tribute to the way that the music manifesto has been brought about, particularly to Mark Jaffray, whose arrival on the scene gave it a real push. I know that he is committed to it; he drives it forward and I have every confidence that under his leadership it will go from strength to strength. I also picked out the section of the manifesto written by Howard Goodall. It was exceptional and I was nearly in tears. Some of his work to promote music is excellent.
	The way that the music manifesto is being implemented should not be seen as second best because we do not have the skills in schools to teach in the traditional way. This is the important point: the manifesto represents a better way of teaching music. It might have come about because we do not have sufficient trained teachers or sufficient music rooms in schools, but by using outside skills and musicians, one only has to observe what the LSO and youth music are doing to know that schools could not possibly do it as well as that. I hope that the Minister will not see the music manifesto just as a way of getting schools to teach music more effectively, but as being the way of delivering music.
	I shall finish with a series of challenges—because challenges are there. First, music is not yet secure in the school curriculum. Statistics in the manifesto show that 10 per cent of primary schools give priority to music at key stage 1 when designing their curriculum. Can you imagine the national outcry if those statistics related to literacy, numeracy, humanities, science or anything else? We will know that we have succeeded when the statistics about the importance of music in the curriculum and the actions that teachers take are as great as they are about the core subjects of literacy, numeracy and science.
	My last point is very much one for the Minister. If you give schools too much freedom it is subjects such as music that some schools will drop.
	One of the great worries I have about the White Paper, involving the freedom that is being given to schools, what they spend and the curriculum they teach, is that at the very time that we are making huge progress in establishing music in our schools and in giving all our children opportunity, we do not want to risk it by giving schools the option of dropping it. I would be grateful if the Minister might refer to that. Overall, this is a time of celebration, it is a joyous time. At last we can have a debate in this House on music education in schools and actually celebrate success as well as indicating further areas for progress.

Lord Armstrong of Ilminster: My Lords, I would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, most warmly for giving us the opportunity to have this debate this evening. I must only apologise to him that I was not able to be here at the very beginning because of a speaking engagement outside which went on—through no fault of my own—longer than I had expected. It is very good to have this opportunity to debate the manifesto.
	When the manifesto first came out there were some people who thought that it was long on imaginative ideas and ambitious aspirations but notably short on whether, when and to what extent the Government's money would be where their mouth was. We have seen over the time since the manifesto was introduced that the funding worries are being relieved in some quarters. I hope that that progress will continue in the future.
	I very much agree with my noble friend Lord Moser that there is this great problem about music education in primary schools and a notable shortage of qualified music teachers. That is not a shortage which will quickly or easily be remedied but I would commend to the Minister the work of the Voices Foundation which is there to promote music and in particular singing in primary schools and has courses for teachers who are not qualified music teachers to equip them more fully to give their young pupils the kind of lead in music and singing that they need to have.
	The importance of music—and in particular of singing—for the young is not merely for their own delectation or improvement. We have seen, for instance in the work that takes place in Bristol, how a group of young people—mostly tearaways outside the school—can find, through the introduction to music and in singing together, a way in which their individual positive contribution can be merged into a communal effort. Music has a social value as well as a musical value.
	The manifesto states:
	"We are committed to broadening the range and skills of teachers . . . artists and other adults so that they are able to work more effectively as music leaders in schools."
	The Royal Northern College of Music, of which I have for one more week the honour to be the chairman of the board of governors, has been successful in winning its bid for a grant as a centre of excellence for teaching and learning. We are using that grant—which will continue for at least five years—to help the students at the college to go out into secondary schools in and around Manchester and gain experience in teaching young people and so we hope equip them the better to enter the profession if that is what they eventually decide to do. That has been a very notable and successful initiative and I warmly commend it and express our gratitude to the Government and to HEFCE for bringing it about.
	I finish by echoing what has been said about the value of music and music education. I have been singing all my life, coming as I do from a musical household and a musical family. I am afraid that I have been singing tenor for the last 65 years if the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, will allow me to mention that. I therefore speak from first-hand experience of the importance that music—and particularly singing—has had in my life, and I believe can have in the life of every young person in this country. As William Byrd said,
	"Since singing is so good a thing, I wish all men would learn to sing".

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for instigating this debate and very much regret that he has heretofore been hiding his light under a bushel. He clearly has a very powerful and resonant voice and I warn him that I shall be seeing him afterwards to recruit him—and the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, who says that he is a tenor—to the Parliamentary Choir.
	I know this subject is close to the Minister's heart. I was recently shown a cutting from the Financial Times from October 1991 of an article by one Andrew Adonis with the headline:
	"School Music May Become the Sound of Silence".
	It focused on the shortage of music teachers at that time. It must distress the Minister to know that in the last year the Government only filled 630 of the 770 available music places on Initial Teacher Training, which was below the 660 recruited last year and the lowest figure since 2000–01. I understand the Government have never hit their target for recruiting music student teachers since they came to office.
	One has to ask why that is when we have such a large number of highly talented young people in this country. I also know from my contact with the Southbank Sinfonia that one of the things the members of the orchestra find most rewarding during their year with the organisation is the outreach work they do with children in schools. For those who do not know, the Southbank Sinfonia is the Parliament Choir's resident orchestra but it is much more than that. It is a charity which gives young musicians straight out of music college 10 months' experience of a very varied programme with a fully fledged orchestra to give them the sort of experience they need to make a living in the highly competitive world of professional music. I hope that some of them will decide to go away and qualify as music teachers as a first choice after their 10 months with the orchestra. I declare an interest as a supporter of the orchestra, and my husband, my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford, is the chairman of its development committee.
	The orchestra is, of course, fulfilling one of the five key aims of this excellent and welcome music manifesto—aim number 3, which is:
	"To identify and nurture our most talented young musicians"—
	and it is doing so at a very high level, much to the great credit of its musical director, Simon Over, and its visionary patron, Michael Berman.
	I should like to talk a little about another organisation that achieves the second of the manifesto's key aims—that is, number 2:
	"To provide more opportunities for young people to deepen and broaden their musical interests and skills".
	I refer to the organisation called Music for Youth, which was founded by Larry Westland 36 years ago. This organisation involves 60,000 children in musical events, including free concerts, all over the country in March every year. Then, in July, it has the National Festival of Music for Youth involving 12,000 children. Finally, in November, it has three days of the schools proms at the Albert Hall with a different programme each night introduced by the wonderful Howard Goodall and performed by about 1,000 children. I have been privileged to have been invited to this by the NUT for the past couple of years, and it is one of the most pleasant and inspiring occasions I ever attend in my role as education spokesman on these Benches. The children are a great credit to their music teachers and the music advisers.
	But Music for Youth faces a major problem. Larry Westland told me recently that the only thing about it that is not growing is the funding. In fact, it has recently lost two major corporate sponsors, one of whom has been with the proms since they started 31 years ago. The organisation would not be able to carry on next year if it were not for a large and unexpected legacy, but the year after that the whole thing will be in jeopardy unless it finds replacement sponsors.
	I wondered why it is so difficult to do what the manifesto proposes and involve the wider community and, in particular, persuade big business to support the schools proms and the Southbank Sinfonia and many other similar organisations. I was told that companies are looking for national media coverage and, because these events are not competitive, they do not have big winners and therefore the national press is not interested. What a pity, say I, and how short-sighted, because Music for Youth gets masses of regional and local press coverage.
	When I was a PR consultant, it was common knowledge that people believe what they read in their local papers far more than what they read in the national papers. So I would have thought that a company wanting to demonstrate its corporate social responsibility would be happy to support all these talented children.
	I accept that the Government cannot provide all the money that it takes to support events like this and to make musical experiences such as performing at the Albert Hall accessible to all children, whatever their parents' income. But I wonder whether enough is being done to encourage and support companies which put their money in as generously as the Norwich Union has done for 31 years. Also, have the Government analysed the hurdles that organisations such as Music for Youth have to jump in order to get government funding? They do get some, by the way, both from the DCMS and the DfES. It takes an enormous amount of time, usually with tiny staffs and dedicated volunteers. Have the Government looked to see whether any red tape can be dispensed with in this respect in order to encourage companies to become involved?
	I particularly look forward to the Minister's reply because, as I said, I know that this is something about which he cares very much.

Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for introducing this important debate. All day, I have been smiling—for the simple reason that this time last evening I was at a packed Albert Hall listening to Jamie Cullum and his band. It was fantastic raw talent that traverses all the musical compartments of jazz, rock or salsa—you name it. It was an inspiration to us all, and he had also played to the hall full of schoolchildren that afternoon. Let us hope that some of them will now try to emulate Jamie in years to come.
	Will the manifesto make a difference to their chances? We all hope so, and my job this evening—in the five minutes that I am allowed to speak—is to urge the Government to ensure that it does.
	The manifesto has succeeded in raising the profile of music and it celebrates all the good music initiatives in place. I welcome the Government's announcement today to commit £2 million to the Hallé, the Roundhouse and the Sage, although, while the money is new, both the Hallé and Sage have been doing wonderful work in this area as part of their core remit.
	The Pathfinder project seems very similar in approach to what is already happening within the BBC and the Arts Council creative hubs. Can the Minister assure us tonight that all these initiatives can and will connect for the common good and that all the hard work that Marc Jaffrey and his steering committee, Leonora Davies as chair of the Music Education Council, and many others are doing is turning the key to more training and the introduction of more teachers into our schools?
	There have been real concerns regarding a focus on how many individuals and organisations have signed up to the manifesto on the manifesto website rather than on what they are all actually doing. Here I think the Government have been clever for they have effectively drawn in many representatives of the music industry, musicians and arts groups. Once in, it is then very difficult for those who have signed up to complain or put real pressure on their partners, ergo the Government, to actually deliver.
	In searching for assurances I turn to the report No.1 of the manifesto, where I note that lots of young people are quoted saying what they would like. Further, for example on page 14 it states that,
	"within the next 10 years no child will leave school without having had access to high quality arts and culture"—
	and—
	"over time all pupils who want to will be able to learn a musical instrument".
	So there will be some musical activity within 10 years and learning an instrument over time. That sounds good but there is no tangible deadline to do more than introduce children at some stage, maybe only one stage, to music. Will the Minister state tonight what the manifesto is actually achieving in terms of outcomes? Can he be sure that more children are actually playing music in the classroom and beyond because of the manifesto?
	I note that further funding announcements are expected in the near future and I urge the Minister to ensure that there is a real drive to see that all the resources are focused upon a long-term sustained commitment to more regular music provision in schools.
	Taking this point further, my noble friend Lord Lloyd Webber, who sadly cannot be in his place this evening because he is, as we speak, preparing to open "The Woman in White" on Broadway tonight, has asked me to express, on his behalf, the crucial importance of ensuring that moneys earmarked for music services actually reach the right destination. Incidentally, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, spoke of the contribution of music to our creative economies. It is hard to think of a more inspirational example of sustained and creative musical talent that young people all over the world can aspire to than my noble friend. He has long campaigned for more teaching of music and musical instruments in schools and he has well documented experience, for example, of trying to track music standards funds that appear to have been used by a local authority for purposes other than music services. Is all the funding now ring-fenced and what assurances can the Minister give us that moneys spent will be properly audited?
	The report No. 1 of the manifesto, together with all the speeches made earlier today and others in the past few years, have made great reading; and there is real activity. We appreciate the fundamental importance of music which should be central to our nation's life. I just want to be sure for the sake of all our children that all the initiatives, speeches and words mean that our children really will have what I and my old school friends—yes—took for granted. Here I differ from what the noble Lord, Lord Harrison said. He said that it was just the lucky few and that he was one of them. In those days, it was the norm. We took for granted but really enjoyed, in the maintained system, back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, weekly music teaching for everyone through primary and secondary school—school orchestras, school choirs and musical instruments that come to life and breathe energy and optimism. We want this for our children now, unlocking creative talent and bringing young people together.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, the House is very grateful to my noble friend Lord Harrison for giving us the chance to discuss the music manifesto this evening and, indeed, for me to be reminded of my writings in the Financial Times of more than 14 years ago.
	My noble friend and other speakers made some very complimentary remarks about the manifesto. Let me say at the outset that those compliments should be entirely directed at my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley and my colleague David Miliband, who together conceived, launched and nurtured the Music Manifesto last year, which I believe will come to be seen as a path-breaking development in the progress of musical education in our country.
	Let me also pay tribute to the other speakers in the debate and to their work in supporting music and music education at large—not least the Parliament Choir, whose concerts I have regularly attended with very great pleasure and the Royal Northern College of Music. The contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Moser, and my noble friend Lady McIntosh to the cause of music education are—I was going to say "legendary", but I would immediately add that the land of legend is the last place that I think either of them would wish to be consigned, and they remain as actively engaged as ever.
	This is a timely debate because this morning I was at the Abbey Road studios, where my noble friend Lady Morris launched the Music Manifesto in July 2004, to announce a £2 million investment for three Music Manifesto Pathfinder centres. These centres are based at The Sage Gateshead, the Roundhouse and the Hallé in Manchester. It was an inspirational occasion with performances by young people from all three institutions amid real excitement and enthusiasm for the Music Manifesto and the part that these three world-famous centres of excellence will play in taking it forward. The £2 million we announced this morning will support the three Pathfinders over the next two and a half years in trialling new partnerships between schools, cultural institutions, music services and the music industry. Each will be trialling new and different ways of delivering the aims of the Music Manifesto throughout its regions. The projects will benefit well over 100,000 children and young people, many in structured activities, which we have specifically agreed in advance, so that we will get the added value to which the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, referred.
	They will support the professional development of 500 music leaders and teachers, and will develop effective practice across music education, including individual tuition, early years, children at risk of social exclusion, singing pedagogy, student leadership, creative learning and the building of more effective partnerships between all those in their regions with a contribution to make, including the 370 signatories to the Music Manifesto, more than 140 of whom have pledged to make specific commitments.
	I take the opportunity to thank all three directors of the Pathfinder institutions: Anthony Sargent at the Sage; Marcus Davey at the Roundhouse; and John Summers at the Hallé for their commitment and all the hard work that they and their staff are putting in. I also reinforce the tributes that have been paid to Marc Jaffrey, the full-time champion of the Music Manifesto, who is in the act of path-breaking joined up government, employed directly by both DCMS and the DfES.
	I also announced today a three-part festival of practice in the new year to showcase future practice in music education in which all three Pathfinder institutions will participate.
	A big theme of this morning's launch was social justice. We are a great musical nation but too few of those from less advantaged backgrounds are part of that musical tradition. We need to tackle that, both as a matter of social justice and, as the right reverend Prelate so rightly said, because the music industry is a crucial source of employment and creativity for our country. Britain has more than 4,000 youth choirs and orchestras. We have more dedicated choir schools, sustained in large part by the Churches, than any other European nation. Every year more than 300,000 people take graded music exams.
	Last year more than 63,000 four to 18 year-olds performed before young audiences totalling 37,000 music for youth festivals and school proms across the UK. We buy more CDs per person than any other nation. More albums are released here than by any other country except the USA. The music industry is worth £5 billion a year to the UK economy, yet, like my noble friend Lady Morris, I never cease to be depressed when visiting schools where insufficient music is taking place. Many primary schools have virtually no music integrated into the curriculum. We need to address that priority if the tradition of music that we want is to spread across the nation. We need to carry through the creative revolution, as referred to by my noble friend, that has already started.
	I shall answer as many of the points raised as I can. My noble friend Lord Harrison asked about the fitness for purpose of classrooms and other school spaces used for music. In 2003 my department issued Building Bulletin 93, The Acoustic Design of Schools", which covers this issue, and which I will send to my noble friend. It includes acoustic performance standards for all teaching and learning spaces in schools, including music accommodation. It specifies room acoustics and the sound insulation of the space from adjoining spaces and from external noise. Those requirements are not retrospective, but in a refurbishment scheme—large numbers of schools are being refurbished or rebuilt through the capital programme—the aim should be to improve the acoustic performance of schools to as near these levels as possible.
	My noble friend referred to the part played by local education authorities in the provision of music education, as did my noble friend Lady Morris. Local authorities continue to have an important role in music education, and we do not wish to diminish their role in sustaining and enhancing music in their localities. Since our introduction of the ring-fenced Music Standards Fund—the money is protected, to meet the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe—we have been funding music services to the tune of £59 million per annum, reversing their decline. Our survey of local authority music services in 2002 showed that approximately 450,000 children benefited each year from additional local authority music service provision, delivered by 10,700 musicians. That picture is reinforced by the number and quality of submissions for the 2005 National Music Council awards for music services. A great deal of excellent practice is once again being recognised and celebrated by these awards, and indeed the ceremony took place a few hours ago at the BPI building in Westminster.
	Concern was expressed by several noble Lords about the comparative levels of funding to local authorities for music. We have long acknowledged those concerns and I recognise the case of Worcestershire. We looked hard during the past two years at alternative ways of distributing the funds, but decided not to introduce any changes because we took the view that the disruption that that would cause to music services that are more highly funded would not be productive or justified. However, we recognise the needs of other areas.
	My noble friend spoke about music provision within extended schools. As part of the £840 million extended schools programme, which we announced recently, we have set out a core offer of extended services that we want all children to be able to access through schools. Part of that offer will be a menu of study/sport activities, including music tuition. Provision of music tuition in extended services will advance our pledge to provide all primary school children who want it with the opportunity to learn an instrument. My noble friend also referred to the Wider Opportunities pilots. In 2002, we embarked on those pilots in 13 areas, focused on instrumental tuition for seven to 11 year-olds. The Ofsted evaluation of those pilots showed that teaching and learning improved and that the number wanting to learn instruments rose significantly. Most significantly, that was the case where successful partnerships were formed in the way that my noble friend Lady Morris described between school-based staff, music service tutors, professional musicians and others.
	We have invested £4.5 million in grants to local authority music services to pilot their own models of delivery through the Wider Opportunities initiative. Through the Music Manifesto, we have set aside substantial additional funds to support instrumental music in primary schools, both next year and the year after. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State will make an announcement about how that will be allocated at the end of the month. My noble friend referred to the contribution that can be made by music professionals who do not have qualified teacher status. I readily acknowledge that.
	Earlier this year, we published a document entitled Routes into Teaching Music, which was developed as a joint venture between the DfES and the Esmée Fairburn Foundation. It is a guide for every kind of musician about how to train and work as a teacher of music, which is much more readily done after the workforce reform that enables a much wider group of people to play roles in schools and in classes in schools. Among other things, it covers the routes into the various jobs and teaching roles and the qualifications or experience needed for entry at each level. It also covers the opportunities to gain qualifications, accreditation and experience, including information about entry requirements, funding and timescale. I will circulate it to all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate this evening.
	The noble Lord, Lord Moser, referred to the funding of other partners who play a crucial part in our musical life, not least the London orchestras, which I know are close to his heart and that of many others. The Government place the highest value on the world-renowned quality of British orchestral music and recognise the real concerns of the sector about national insurance, which the noble Lord raised. It is understandable that the ongoing uncertainty until that issue is resolved is unsettling for both the organisations and individuals concerned. Discussions are under way between the Department for Culture Media and Sport, the Revenue and Customs, the Arts Council England and the Association of British Orchestras. I hope that we can bring them to a conclusion as soon as possible.
	The issue of secondary provision was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. We have taken several steps to improve secondary provision in music. The specialist school programme is now making a significant contribution to music education. We now have more than 400 specialist performing arts colleges, 15 music colleges and five combined specialisms involving music. We have more than 200 advanced skills teachers in music and, specifically to address the recruitment difficulties in music mentioned by the noble Baroness, we are incentivising the recruitment of extra graduate music teachers next year with a new £2,500 golden hello for music graduates entering music training courses from next September.
	We also have the invaluable role of youth music, mentioned by my noble friend, Lady McIntosh. More than 1 million children have been composing, singing and playing instruments through youth music activities during the past five years, benefiting from £18 million of funding. In response to my noble friend's concern about funding, we are committed to sustaining that work. My noble friend Lord Harrison mentioned the audit of music education. We have published significant new information in the first annual report of the Music Manifesto. We will soon publish the latest audit of local authority music services, and I will ensure that that is circulated to noble Lords. I have run out of time. In conclusion, the ubiquitous Howard Goodall also performed this morning at the launch of the music manifesto pathfinder. He made a very moving speech about music as a force for social cohesion and a better and fairer society. He said:
	"Nothing brings people together, across social boundaries, more willingly, in larger numbers, for a more wholly positive experience, than the making of music".
	I believe that is a sentiment we all share and I commend it to the House.

Identity Cards Bill

House again in Committee on Clause 1.

The Earl of Northesk: moved Amendment No. 24:
	Page 2, line 7, leave out paragraphs (b) to (f).

The Earl of Northesk: The Minister might imagine that the underlying purpose of the amendment is destructive. I hope to offer her some reassurance by advising that my aim here is merely to probe a few issues. I am also grateful to other noble Lords who have been more imaginative than me in tabling amendments to constrain the terms of the individual categories of information.
	First, the registrable facts encapsulated in paragraphs (b) to (f) cannot be interpreted as identifiers of an individual's identity. Indeed, if we consider the drafting of Schedule 1(1), these categories are defined as "personal", rather than "identifying" information. This point was reinforced by the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform and in its observation that registrable facts are,
	"not necessarily limited to information needed to prove identity . . . and extends to matters such as previous addresses, terms of residence in different parts of the UK and elsewhere and an 'audit trail' of disclosure of register entries".
	Of course, I acknowledge that these categories of data will be of benefit in terms of corroborating an individual's identity. Nevertheless, as I shall seek to demonstrate, the scope and range of the information required is wholly disproportionate. As I understand it, these categories of information comprise more data than that required to be given to the police for individuals placed on the Sexual and Violent Offender Register. By way of illustration, paragraphs (c) and (d) impose the requirement for the individual to record every address at which he or she has been resident and for how long,
	"in the United Kingdom or elsewhere".
	For the vast majority, this represents a huge amount of data. For example, will Members of Parliament have to update their information on the register on a weekly basis to indicate the periods that they have resided in London and the periods they have resided in their constituencies? More seriously, the provision appears to include periods of residence overseas, periods of residence of children, periods of residence at school or university, and so on. It has to be questionable whether we will all have the capacity to remember the precise details of where we have resided for every moment of our lives. That is a significant consideration, given that failure to provide the prescribed information could incur liability for a civil penalty.
	Additionally, given the drafting, individuals may be required to register residential circumstances such as extended treatment in hospitals and periods spent at clinics or refuges; for example, in respect of mental illness, that would involve hospice care for the terminally ill or safe houses for victims of domestic violence. Equally, individuals may be required to indicate periods of residence when serving sentences of imprisonment—something which would be, on the face of it, antipathetic to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. A requirement to register such information, irrespective of whether it is intrusive, not to say insensitive, could be said to contravene the Data Protection Act in respect of sensitive personal data.
	Despite protestations from the Government, subsection (6) is a very small fig leaf; after all, it bars the recording of sensitive personal data only in respect of subsection (5)(g). However, even if it were drafted to include residential data, as envisaged by Amendment No. 38, tabled in the names of my noble friends, I am uncertain that that would resolve the problem. As is so often the case with database management, omission of data, and what can be inferred from that omission, can be just as revealing and intrusive as their inclusion. Were incomplete records to be justified on data protection grounds then, by definition, where a gap in an individual's record of residence exists, that period would have to relate to sensitive personal data.
	In such circumstances, it would be a relatively simple matter, as a function of probability, to tie the period to a specific life event such as a prison sentence. The problem here is that an individual's whole life experience can be deduced merely by reference to where they have lived and for how long. The residential information, or its absence from the register, may not per se qualify as being sensitive, but what can be inferred from it most assuredly is. In effect, the Government's oft-repeated claim that no sensitive data, as defined by the Data Protection Act, will be held on the register would seem to be just so much window-dressing.
	Inevitably, all those difficulties also arise in respect of paragraph (b). Individuals will be required to record their current residential details irrespective of any element of sensitive personal data with which such information may be imbued. For example, is it really the Government's intention that terminally ill patients living out their days in a hospice will be required to record that fact in the register? There is also the problem of how it is anticipated that, for example, rough sleepers or Travellers will register their details. In effect, will "no fixed abode" be an adequate answer? There may also be potential problems with paragraphs (e) and (f). Asylum seekers who have fled persecution will be required in effect to make that fact plain in the register, thereby potentially exposing themselves to the risk of retribution.
	All in all, the construction of those categories of residential information is disproportionate to the purpose that they are intended to achieve. It sanctions pervasive capture of sensitive personal data for inclusion in the register in contravention of the Data Protection Act. I therefore look forward to the Minister's explanation of the logic on which the Government's drafting is based. I beg to move.

Viscount Simon: I advise Members of the Committee that, if Amendment No. 24 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 25 to 35 due to pre-emption.

Lord Crickhowell: Last night my noble friend Lord Northesk rendered the Committee a service by enabling us to debate the subject of convenience. We return to that subject with this group of amendments but, as the noble Earl has indicated, there may be an even more important set of questions than that which simply concerns convenience.
	My noble friend was probably wrong when he said that all those who make applications for passports or apply to join the register would necessarily be required to provide all that information. The subsection that we are dealing with simply defines "registrable fact". However, Clause 5 enables the Secretary of State to prescribe what information should be provided and, as the Government have listed all those registrable facts, we must start by assuming that the Secretary of State may ask for all the information on the list.
	My second introductory comment is that not all the information described as a registrable fact must be entered on the register. Under Schedule 1, personal information that may be recorded in an individual's entry includes,
	"the address of his principal place of residence in the United Kingdom"
	and,
	"the address of every other place in the United Kingdom where he has a place of residence".
	But it does not refer to the past and the clauses on previous residences, to which I will refer. Last night, the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, described himself as "a simple lawyer." I think some of us raised our eyebrows at this description. I am not a lawyer at all and when I first looked at the Bill, I assumed that "residence" was something which would be defined in such a way that lawyers would understand and would have a universal application that I could very quickly discover by enquiring at the Library. I went to the Library; they referred me to two works with which the noble Baroness will be very familiar: Curzon's Dictionary of Law and Stroud's Judicial Dictionary of Words and Phrases. I discovered that the situation is much more complicated than I had imagined. What a residence is depends very much on the situation and the particular Act of Parliament with which we are dealing.
	To take an obvious example, for the purposes of getting ourselves on the register of electors, the residence in question is where we happen to be on a particular night. It may include a tent or caravan, or wherever we are spending that night. I turned hopefully to Curzon to start the operation and discovered that a "residence" is a
	"place where a person abides, i.e., where he has his home".
	I was not sure that took me a great deal further, but below I discovered that an "habitual residence" was defined in R v Barnet LBC as,
	"a voluntary residence with a degree of settled purpose".
	The simple lawyer, like the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, will doubtless know exactly what that means, but the non-lawyer will not necessarily be much the wiser.
	Then I got into Stroud and the whole thing became even more complicated. Under the definition "reside, residence, resident," I read that,
	"a condition to a gift of a house that the donee takes actual possession of it, 'as and for his residence and place of abode', and continue during his life to reside therein, does not imply that the donee must continue personally to reside in the house; he will satisfy the condition by keeping up the house as a place of residence in which he and (or?) some of the members of his family occasionally dwell."
	I do not think that is the intention of the present Bill.
	Then we have the situation of the Army officer who had a place of residence that was deemed not actually to be a residence, because he had let it and was living in Germany while serving in the Army. I think we need to know exactly what the Government's intentions are.
	Let us take the example of many Members of this House. My noble friend Lord Northesk has already touched upon this in respect of Members of Parliament. Many of us have two homes, one of which may be in the country, and another that we live in when in London in order to attend this House. In my case I have a house in the country and my wife has a house in London where I live when attending this House. I met a noble Lord at dinner whose wife is Spanish. He tells me that she has two houses in Spain and he has two in this country.
	In addition, some people may have a holiday home in, say, France and all those may be defined as residences. To complicate issues, I recall that when I was a Minister, a Minister's principal home was deemed to be in London. Fortunately, when we come to this place and start claiming our parliamentary expenses, our principal home may prove to be in the country.
	Furthermore, many students live at home with their families and spend some time at university. We need to know what requirements may be imposed on them. My Amendment No. 24 limits the requirement to name your principal residence in the United Kingdom. My noble friends Lady Anelay and Lady Seccombe and I have tabled a string of amendments attempting to restrict the definition either by saying that you have to live there for three months; that students do not have to register their place at university unless they have been there for three months; and so on. My noble friend Lord Northesk raised a whole string of examples which I had not thought of; for example, hospitals, hospices and prisons. All of them fall within the definition. Before we go much further, we must have a clear definition of the Government's intention in this respect.
	I turn to the second set of issues that we must consider. I notice a requirement that we should go back, presumably to the age of 16, to record all the places we have lived in. We must not only record those places but remember the dates when we arrived and left. It is a pretty extraordinary demand. I cast my mind back to 1953 when I was a National Service officer. I suppose that for part of that year my residence was in Jamaica. Perhaps visits to Taipa, Bermuda and a spell on two of Her Majesty's ships were not long enough to qualify as residential. But then I went to Germany where I was probably in residence. Having finished my service, I returned to live at my parents' home in Chiswick and then I went up to Cambridge University for a spell. I am not clear from the Bill whether I am required to record not only all those places but the time when I was there. I hope that in reply the Minister will say that of course it is not the Government's intention that we should have to do such unreasonable things. However, as the Bill stands, that could be the position. I think we are entitled to know what the Government's intentions are on this matter.
	That takes me to one further point. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Gould, is not with us today. Yes, he is here! The noble Lord, Lord Gould, tells us that this is a hugely popular measure, as does the Minister. I have been reading carefully the document I was urged to read during yesterday's debate. Page 33 of the document issued by the Home Office states:
	"This exercise demonstrates the importance of making it very clear to citizens what conditions they are judging the scheme on before they are asked to agree or disagree to the scheme".
	The document makes it very clear that their attention was drawn to the possible costs of the scheme. We know from our earlier debates that estimates of those costs are completely misleading and almost worthless, but, none the less, a number of cost options were drawn to their attention. Also drawn to their attention was the fact that they might have to go to places to register and that it might take up to an hour. No reference was made to the fact that they were going to have to record all the places where they had lived at any time in their lives since the age of 16. I am taking 16 as the age because that is the age at which people are going to come into the scheme as it stands. Once they understand that they are going to be asked for this information, that they will be liable to quite severe penalties if they fail to provide it accurately, and that its accuracy can be checked, they may not be quite so much in favour of the scheme as they were previously.
	So at this stage, when we are taking only an early look at the detail of the scheme, it is important that the Government clarify their intentions. If we are going to have a scheme, I think that we all want it to be reasonably practical and easy to operate. One of our amendments suggests that the record of residence should not have to go back more than six years. That would at least ease the problem of looking back into the far distant past which I have identified. If we were to restrict the clause further so that we would not have to list anywhere where we did not spend three months in every year, it would simplify matters a good deal. There may be other ways in which we can make this a more practical and sensible measure.
	Is it really necessary to divulge to Her Majesty's Government every possible bolt-hole that we may have in any part of the world where we may want to go for a few weeks of peace and quiet? Of course I understand that they must have, and be pretty confident about, a principal residence where we can be pinned down and where people can, if not find us, at least convey requests and information to us by whatever method is chosen by government. But to ask us to identify every single possible place where we may put our heads for a few nights and which falls within a definition of residence is totally unreasonable. It will cause the scheme to be probably unworkable and certainly unpopular. In the hope and expectation that the Government have worked out a much more sensible arrangement and are—dare I say it?—going to reveal it to an astonished Committee tonight, I support my noble friend's amendment and hope that we get a positive response.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: In speaking to my amendments, I support those moved by my noble friend Lord Northesk and spoken to my noble friend Lord Crickhowell. Clause 1(5) gives us too rough an idea of what is meant by the "registrable facts" that may be held on the national database about our personal lives. As my noble friends said, these amendments aim to tease out from the Government a more rounded picture of how the measure will be applied. Otherwise, the open-ended ability of the Government to pile demand after demand on individuals to come up with every detail of their lives will plainly be unsustainable and certainly extremely unpopular.
	I shall explain briefly the purpose of the amendments tabled in my name. Amendments Nos. 26, 29 and 34 would exempt the registration of places where one had lived for less than three months. I also ask the Government to explain how the provisions will affect those of no fixed abode, a point already mentioned by my noble friend Lord Northesk, or indeed how they will affect the Traveller communities. I am reminded every day of the needs of those with no fixed abode when I travel past the Salvation Army hostel close to Vauxhall Bridge Road on my way back from discussing matters in your Lordships' House. So this is a very real concern.
	Amendment No. 31 seeks to exempt the registration of those places where one has spent a holiday. This goes beyond the situation referred to by my noble friend Lord Crickhowell when he mentioned second homes and holiday homes. What if someone takes a sabbatical? We all think we know what we mean by a holiday, but I feel some pangs of jealousy when I find out that some of my former colleagues from outside the House are given a year's sabbatical paid for by their employers. One must be wary of how one defines a holiday, as well as who should be exempted and who should not.
	Amendment No. 27 would exempt from registration those addresses at which one had lived as a student or as a person under a work contract for less than three months. Are the Government treating students of different ages and backgrounds, whether they are mature students or those still in their teenage years, in different ways when it comes to requiring or exempting the registration of all addresses? If so, how and why?
	Amendments Nos. 30 and 35 would exempt from registration those addresses at which one has lived or lives currently outside the United Kingdom. These amendments have been tabled simply to ask the Government what kind of verification of overseas addresses would be required within the context of the Bill as it stands. I wonder rather cynically how on earth someone from deepest Darfur is expected to provide a postcode or proper proof of their address. The Government need to give us some sensible answers on this.
	Amendment No. 28 would confine the registration of addresses to those one had used during the past six years, a point already mentioned in passing by my noble friend Lord Crickhowell. My noble friend referred to his own life, and I should like to refer to my mother's experiences. My mother died earlier this year at the age of 91. She led an industrious but, some would say, a quiet life. She lived at home with her parents until she married at the age of 24. She then shared with my father just two homes over the whole of her life. But during the Second World War she wanted to be with my father while he was being trained, so she was put to work in various places around the United Kingdom and travelled to wherever she was allocated. Although her memory was formidable and she was proud of her war work, she certainly would not have been able to recall all the addresses of where she lived during those years. She might have been able to recall the different towns, but not the exact addresses.
	My question is this: what do we expect people to be able to remember? What onus will be placed on them in this regard? Although my mother had a superb memory, she would not have been able to come up with the relevant facts. What of those suffering from Alzheimer's disease or those less able to recall detailed information? I am sure that the Government do not intend to place undue pressure on such people, but we need that kind of detail to be fleshed out.
	If the Government follow the line taken by the Minister in another place and say, "Well, we intend to use the UK Passport Service rule of requiring evidence of addresses for the past six years", then of course I must ask: why not just say so in the Bill? In Committee on 6 July at col. 67, the Minister, Mr McNulty, stated that the application form would require us to provide addresses for the past six years, but that the six-year requirement would be in regulations yet to be drafted.
	My concern, as reflected in my probing amendment, is that if the Government introduce a six-year requirement, at what stage will they decide that they need to go back further than six years for some people and on what will such a decision be based? If it is to be different strokes for different folks, on what basis will they decide how to discriminate against some individuals by requiring more information from them? Will they discriminate on a personal basis, on groups, on suspicion, or on information provided by the security services? How will that kind of decision be made?
	Amendment No. 33 appears to reflect a comment by my noble friend Lord Crickhowell. When debating his own amendment on principal residence he asked what a place of residence means. My amendment is far more prosaic. Amendment No. 33 asks the Government to explain their choice of drafting when using different forms of words in Clause 1(5)(c) and (d). Subsection (5)(c) refers to,
	""where he has previously resided".
	Subsection 5(d) uses the term "was resident". Is there any significance in that difference or was it simply a different person drafting the subsection?
	I should be grateful if the Minister could try to give some answers to these myriad questions. We shall listen carefully to her reply and consider what we shall need to do at a later stage.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I support the amendment. Clarity will be essential if a lot of people are not to get very upset over the legislation—and they will get upset anyway.
	The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, must be commended for his library work. He could have gone further. One could have 10 lawyers arguing for 10 days without reaching a conclusion on what "residence" means. The noble Baroness will remember that "residence" for tax purposes engages many, rather well-paid, lawyers in endless argument. Since we are being confessional, my grandfather's residence was a series of hotels. He never had a place of residence but went from one spa town to another staying in hotels. Where would he stand under the Bill? Perhaps under the terms of the Bill he has no place of residence, placing him in the same class as the poor old fellow on the London street.
	We need to do far more on this issue before the Bill leaves the House. I shall be fascinated to hear the Minister's response.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: Perhaps I may be swift in illustrating the problems. I am sure it is sensible to have a maximum time over which to go back. To go back over a whole life would be a massive burden on citizens. I doubt whether there would be anything like a proportionate advantage to the public authorities, whatever one's views on the Bill. Equally, young people often change residence after very short periods. They may stay in a place for a few weeks or days. Presumably a few days will go unnoticed. But with regard to a few weeks or a few months, there must be a minimum period. I suggest that three months, as proposed in the amendments, is not unreasonable.
	In casting my mind back to between 1956 and 1963, I lived at 10 different addresses in Markyate, Buckingham, Aldershot, Bulford, Hertfordshire, Oxford, Hertfordshire, Newcastle, Blaydon and London. Over the past three years, one of my sons has lived in Oxford, Markyate, World's End, Clapham, Fulham and World's End. That must be fairly typical.
	Questions by the noble Lord, Lord Gould of Brookwood, will have ascertained the public popularity of having to apply six times in three years to re-register. They will have explained exactly how much he anticipates it costs to re-register. These are serious points. I am sure that the whole purpose of this kind of constructive, revising legislation is to try to iron out those difficulties. I much look forward to hearing what the noble Baroness will say.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: First, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, for his remarkable memory. He had no difficulty in going back to 1953. I confess that I do not have the opportunity to do so. I shall not comment on the remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, while seated.
	I understand the importance of the issues raised by all noble Lords. I also understand that it is a probing amendment. These are important issues. I shall seek to answer as many as I can. I hope that the explanation will assist noble Lords to realise that we understand that the practicalities are important and that we have to ensure that we do not put a disproportionately large burden on people which would make it difficult for them to comply. So, with the leave of the Committee, I shall go slowly through the issues and attempt to answer the different species of concern raised by noble Lords.
	Amendments Nos. 24 and 25 relate to the provision for allowing addresses to be held on the national register as one of the registered facts. They are concerned with the boundaries we are seeking. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, for acknowledging the starting point that there is no objection to having an address registered on the national identity register, that there is utility in doing so and, indeed, that it could be helpful to card holders in many ways. Furthermore, the detail and information contained in these amendments are exactly the kind of detailed arrangements that should be set out in regulations rather than on the face of primary legislation. However, it may be helpful if I explain how we currently intend this issue to be considered.
	Applicants for identity cards will be asked for information about their current principal address, together with current alternative addresses and previous addresses. They will not be asked about every address at which they have ever lived. However, once an identity card has been issued, historic data and information previously recorded will continue to be held on the register, but not as part of the current record of information provided with the consent of the identity card holder under Clause 14. The current address will be required not only to enable the new agency to contact individuals but also to clearly record on the register where someone lives if they need subsequently to provide evidence of address—for example, when seeking access to a service that applies only to people living in a particular catchment area.
	We will use the order-making power in Clause 43(10) to specify in detail exactly what will be regarded as a place where a person resides or as his principal place of residence. We will also use the order-making power under Clause 12 to set out clearly which particular changes of address need to be notified and the period within which this must be done. I can reassure the Committee that there will not be a requirement to update addresses every time someone changes their address for a short period of time or when, for example, they go on holiday. Our current thinking is that a person would be required to notify the agency of a change of address for any place where he or she has lived continuously for a period of three months or more.
	However, we will consider making exemptions in the case of students or others who have continuing permanent addresses. I understand the point about students made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell of Markyate, and the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell. For students with a term-time address, or for people with second homes, it would be possible, although not a requirement—I emphasise it is not a requirement—for them to update their entry as frequently as they move from one place to another if they found it of personal benefit.
	After moving into a new residence, there will be a reasonable time limit for notifying the agency of the new address. There will be no requirement for changes to be notified immediately.
	We intend that updates of addresses will be both easy and secure. There will be a variety of methods to update an address on the national identity register, including over the Internet, by telephone or in writing. But in each case, in order to protect individuals from bogus attempts to change their address details, there would need to be a validation of identity. The identity card scheme is currently investigating the most secure method of conducting such remote transactions, including the use of methods involving one-time passwords, which would provide much greater assurance than traditional passwords.
	Previous addresses will be required from an identity card applicant for two reasons. First, if there has been a recent change of address, it will help the individual to ensure that the register has both addresses available. It might create problems if the register held only the latest address and a service checking identity had the person living at their last address.
	Secondly, previous addresses are needed to enable background checks to be carried out, to ensure a gold standard of identity is entered onto the register. For example, this check could be against DVLA records to confirm that the person really has lived at the addresses they claim. As I stated in Committee, it is sometimes much harder for a fraudster to create historic records than it is to create current ones.
	We will prescribe the period for which we will ask for information on previous addresses as provided at paragraph 1(h) of Schedule 1. Our current thinking is that we will ask all applicants for details of their addresses for the past six years, and only in the most exceptional cases would any earlier details be required. Clearly we would not require an applicant to provide us with details of every place where they have spent a single night in the last six years. Currently we think that a place of residence would be any place where you have lived continuously for three months or more. However, we think it would be wrong for this sort of detail to be set out on the face of the Bill.
	We have amended the Bill from the version that was previously introduced, so that previous addresses are no longer held in the information recorded in paragraph 1 of Schedule 1. I should make clear that the historic information will also be held, but will not be available on the current record. Thus, if someone has held an identity card for, say, the last 30 years, information about their early addresses will have been moved into the record history part of the register.
	The power to hold record history is provided by paragraph 5 of Schedule 1. It is important to note that the powers for verification with consent provided by Clause 14 do not cover paragraph 5, so it would not be possible for a commercial organisation to seek provision of an individual's complete address history on the national identity register, even with that person's consent. The individual could himself seek provision of that information under a Data Protection Act data subject access request. That is the way it would have to be done. In addition, it would be possible for historic information to be provided to the police, for example, under Clause 19 in connection with the prevention or detection of crime.
	I assure the noble Baroness and noble Lords who have raised the issue of those with no fixed abode and Travellers that we will look carefully at how we deal with that situation. It is clear that we need to deal with homeless people and with Travellers. We have yet to confirm fully how we will handle address details for groups such as the homeless, those with no fixed abode and Travellers, but, in Clause 43(10), we have the power to make regulations as to a place that is to be regarded as their place of residence. It is probable that a contact address will be sufficient.
	I assure the Committee, however, that we are committed to developing a scheme that will not exclude these groups from registering for their identity card. For the purposes of a biographical footprint check, an applicant's inability to provide an address or address history will make it more difficult to validate his or her details. However, the biographical footprint check will be based on a range of information provided by an applicant and will use a number of databases and other sources in order to build evidence of identity relating to an applicant's details. Therefore, it will be possible to develop satisfactory evidence of identity, for example, through a personal meeting with an applicant without requiring address details where there are clearly good reasons why that person has no address history.
	In a small minority of cases there may be a need to collect further information from an applicant about earlier addresses in order to validate his identity, for example, in the case of a British citizen who has just returned to the United Kingdom having lived six years abroad. Collecting information on past addresses in the United Kingdom from such an applicant could be an important extra piece of information to enable their identity to be validated. However, for the vast majority of identity card applicants we expect to ask for no more than details of addresses over the past six years.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, asked about elderly people who might be unable to give all the necessary details. I have dealt in part with the length of time issue. Elderly people may be exempted from the requirement to register or the requirement to obtain an ID card. Not all the information will be required from every applicant. We shall have to consider those issues very sensitively. Your Lordships will know that many other forms contain an age distinction regarding people over 85 or whatever. We shall have to consider the regulations very carefully in that regard. Not all the information will be required from every single person.
	The application process will be discussed in more detail when we discuss amendments to Clause 5. However, I assure the Committee that the process will be sensitively handled because we want to ensure that we properly record the details of all those who wish to participate in the scheme while it is voluntary. It will be absolutely crucial to have sensible arrangements when the scheme becomes compulsory. The noble Baroness asked why we need to have the power to hold addresses abroad on the national identity register. First, any applicant for an ID card may have lived abroad recently. In order to confirm their identity it would not be unreasonable to know where they have lived to enable us to get that certainty. Secondly, we must not overlook the fact that foreign nationals resident in the United Kingdom and entitled to registration may still have an address overseas that they would wish to have registered also. The noble Baroness asked about the steps that we would take to verify overseas addresses. We would not need to do so unless there was uncertainty about that person's address.
	Finally, in relation to Amendment No. 33 the noble Baroness asked what was the difference between the phrases "has resided" and "was resident". The simple answer is, "None". I hope that I have been able to reassure—

Lord Crickhowell: I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for giving an extremely helpful, positive and detailed response, which we shall need to study extremely carefully. One specific question occurs to me. Assuming that a resident provides the information which satisfies the authorities that he has given a legitimate place of contact, some may have very good reasons for not wanting to disclose on a register where they are. Some people may not want to do that for security or other sensitive reasons. Would such people be able to make a reasonable request that that information is not recorded on the register and would it be considered sympathetically and with understanding? They may provide a contact and, perhaps, the address, but there may be very good reasons for not having their location identified on a register.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I can certainly understand what the noble Lord says. The most important thing is that the details that are given in relation to the address enable those who have to clarify and secure the accuracy of that identity to complete the first registration.
	I spoke earlier about the other potential issue of those who, for good reasons, have perhaps had to change identity or have other reasons why the provision has to be kept secure. We touched on the fact that there is that provision, in response to the question raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell of Markyate, in terms of compulsion and probability. We must be clear that, for the purposes of the Bill, that identity and that information is conclusive. It should not necessarily be conclusive for criminal proceedings, but it should be conclusive in terms of obtaining access to information.
	So if there are specific issues such as those that are security-related, this structure would ensure that the proper indications could be placed on the register in a way that would enable us to keep that person secure. The whole purpose of the provisions that we have created is to obtain certainty of identity and utility—returning to the idea of convenience—and we do not wish to introduce burdensome provisions that would have no real utility of purpose. We believe that we will be able to get that balance right in the regulations.
	I hope that I have been able to reassure noble Lords, first, in relation to the usual three month requirement for residence and, secondly, why we think that six years is an appropriate period, but that there would be special reasons where it might be necessary, due to an individual's particular circumstances, not just to look at the six years, but to go back further, to ensure that we had clearly identified the correct person. I hope that I have answered all the questions raised by noble Lords and have reassured the Committee that we are alive to these issues and will seek to address them.

Lord Maxton: This is a genuine question—I am not clear in my own mind as to the relationship between the register and other databases on which information about individuals is held. I accept that there should be no compulsion in this, but if, for example, someone was not clear about some aspect that they wished to include on the register, could they voluntarily ask the register to seek that information from other sources? Could that be something as simple as the electoral register, the DVLA, the passport authority, or whatever?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: Is my noble friend saying that if there is an inability or insecurity about providing an address, would we use further and other means to ensure that we had the right person and that they had properly been identified? I hope that I have been able to reassure the Committee that if we do not have the address, we will seek other verifiable means to ensure that the information given by the individual is, indeed, correct, because the whole purpose of this exercise is to ensure that we have the right person properly identified before their biometric data goes on to the register.

Viscount Colville of Culross: A number of us—and I see two of my noble colleagues here this evening—in this House are now very much concerned with the details of statutory instruments. If the Minister is saying that a great deal of this detail is going to have to be relegated to regulations then I totally understand what she is saying because there is clearly going to be an enormous amount of detail that will not go into the Bill.
	One of the difficulties at the moment about regulation making is the consultation process. Normally speaking the Cabinet Office deals with business, and the effect of regulations on business. This is not that sort of case at all. This is a case where members of the public are going to be personally affected in very many different ways and will be asked to give a lot of information about their previous lives and their circumstances and so on. I do not expect the Minister to answer tonight, but how does the Home Office suppose that they are going to have a consultation process which is not going to lead to a great deal of dissatisfaction when the regulations are eventually laid? Once they are laid, we have the usual problem about them not being able to be amended. I ask the Minister to think about this issue because it is a very serious problem if you are going to consult every single member of the population of the British Isles.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I assure the noble Viscount that I will certainly think about that. One of the advantages that we have in relation to this Bill is that it has been much talked about and we have to try and ensure that the utility of the regulations is, if not guaranteed, then assured by the way in which we craft them. There would be no point in having regulations in relation to the detail if they did not work in a way that was practical and understandable.
	To answer the point raised by my noble friend Lord Maxton I also assure the Committee that we have the power under Clause 11 to check information on the register with other data sources. That subject is to do with safeguards and we will discuss it later on in the Bill. But we will consider that issue very carefully. We do of course have the new committee which looks at statutory instruments and that is an additional and quite new safeguard of which we might be able to take advantage.

Viscount Colville of Culross: That is exactly why I raised the point—I am a member of the committee. We know our limitations: we can complain if the consultation has been inadequate but there is nothing that anybody can do about it unless the Government are prepared to withdraw the regulations.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I absolutely understand that; I was simply seeking to compliment those who, like the noble Viscount, are undertaking this work because it is going to make the work of this Chamber much easier and it will make it clearer when we come to use the affirmative procedure as to whether we feel comfortable about agreeing or disagreeing because we will have an informed basis upon which to look at those issues.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: This mini debate makes me wonder just how practical all this will be. With a high level of limited literacy in the population at large and an incredibly mobile population, I wonder—and this is speaking as a down-to-earth practising lawyer—what level of accuracy one can expect from the population as a whole, especially in relation to these past addresses. When one looks at Clause 30, which is the clause which allows for prosecution for inaccurate information supplied—admittedly it requires mens rea or recklessness—I could imagine that even without the significant minority of people who are going to want to bamboozle the record as regards their past, there will be a sizeable minority of the population who simply will not be capable of understanding the sort of notes that will be put out with the questionnaire. Just consider the questions that have been raised tonight in this place and how much we have been metaphorically scratching our heads. I ask the Minister—not to make difficulties, but in a really practical sense—is this going to work?

Lord Maxton: I am still astonished by the feeling that somehow or other the register will create a mass of totally new material. If the noble Lord were prepared to tell me the name of the town in which he lives, I could tell him tomorrow morning exactly where he lives in that town, who the other residents in his house are, who his neighbours are, and I could even print out a map of where his house is in the town. A website called 192.com will give you all that information without any trouble at all.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: We need to nip this in the bud. We are talking about the requirement for people to provide an historical background. We appreciate the electronic means at our disposal to be able to track down who lives where, provided that those records are correct, but there is a longer perspective here. As we have made clear, we are trying to ensure that too much stress is not put on people. It is the honest and law-abiding people who will want to fill in the information correctly whom I am really worried about.

Lord Maxton: That is the point—95 or 98 per cent of the population are exactly the kind of people whom the noble Baroness describes, and a very small proportion may be the people to whom the noble Lord referred.
	The other thing that is available to anyone on the website—I accept that you have to pay for some of the information—is every census since 1881. I can tell noble Lords where my grandfather first lived when he went to Glasgow in 1881. That information is available. It is not impossible to find out about people at present, and I really do not understand why people are getting so upset and concerned about this information being available on the register, as opposed to being available in a whole range of other places.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: As the noble Baroness said, it is because of the historicity of the issue. It is easy enough now, but we should just look at the electoral register. The Electrical Commission calculates that well over 1 million people are not on that register. What will we do when 1 million, 2 million or 3 million of our citizens do not fill in the questionnaire come the day—if it comes—when the register is compulsory? I am not trying to make difficulties; I am being realistic and asking the Government—this comes back to a very basic issue—whether we are not going a bridge too far with this whole grandiose project and leading ourselves to a shambolic future.

Lord Crickhowell: I want to make one point but, before I do so, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, that we are not really discussing in this series of amendments whether or not he can get certain information about where someone happens to be living at present or even where his grandfather was on a particular night on which the census was held. In fact, the information in the census does not tell him any more than where an individual was on a particular night. We are talking about the requirement of all sorts of people, who are nothing like as clever as the noble Lord and who do not have the computer equipment that the noble Lord has, to provide accurate information that changes very frequently. I believe I am right in saying that about 60 per cent of the population of London change their address every year.
	So this is a question of the burdens that are being placed on people. Last night the noble Lord described this as the poll tax Bill, and I took him up on that. But if it is unpopular and if people find that the burden is unreasonable, that is not his object and it is not my object either. We are trying to make this a reasonably practical and workable scheme, and I was greatly encouraged by the response of the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, who was clearly trying to give us that assurance.
	I have one further thought on the matter. Having heard what the noble Baroness said, and having heard what was said about regulations, I think that we will have to consider whether we should write into the Bill at least some of the restrictions on time and duration and so on which she said are likely to be introduced in the regulations so that there is some constraint on government. I mean, we may have to go back 30 or 40 years as the Bill is drafted. The Minister has indicated that probably the Government will not want us to go back, except in very exceptional cases, more than six years. She has already indicated that probably the three-month residence qualification is likely to be the sort of thing that would be included in regulation.
	We need to consider before the next stage, having read very carefully what the Minister has to say, whether some upper limits should be placed in the Bill so that the Government are constrained in the drafting of their regulation. As has been said, we all know the difficulties about dealing with regulation. Parliament is very reluctant to give totally unconstrained and unlimited powers in Acts of Parliament that enable governments to do things by regulation. So while I very much welcome what the Minister has said—it was positive and she has responded to almost all the anxieties I raised—I think that we need to consider whether there still should be some outer limits placed on government which make the provision very much tighter than it is.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: I add my appreciation for the way the Minister has responded to these important points. I think that she has gone a very long way to meet us, particularly in regard to those sections of society who are comparatively affluent and educated and comparatively willing to provide the information.
	I ask for clarification on one point. The noble Baroness mentioned Travellers and others and her approach is obviously sensible. There is a section of the population, particularly architects, surveyors or engineers, who work abroad and live temporarily in England for whom an accommodation address—I agree that it and their identification must be properly validated—is really almost a necessity and likely to be the most sensible thing to accept. I hope the Government agree with that approach.
	Perhaps I may say a word about what the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, was saying. I agree that over 90 per cent of the population will probably co-operate and on this aspect will be willing to see the Bill work. The main problem will be with the other 10, 5 or 2.5 per cent. That should not be shrugged off because 5 per cent of the population is about 2 million adults. It is probable that among those 2 million adults there will be a high proportion of those in whom the security services and others are likely to be most interested. We should not underestimate the very real problems that still await us.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: We have had a positive debate. I sympathise with the concern of my noble friend Lord Maxton. To answer the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, currently about 85 per cent of our population have passports. If you look at the requirements for obtaining a passport, they are not dissimilar from the sort of provisions to which I have already referred. To obtain a passport you are required to give several years of past addresses. So we are not doing anything which is so dissimilar from that which we have already done.
	I am very grateful for the indications that have been given by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell of Markyate, and the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell. Much of what we have said has reassured noble Lords that we are looking at this issue appropriately. I understand that the noble Lord would wish there to be an outer perimeter, almost. Perhaps I may say, as gently as I can, that it is usual for that sort of detail to be put in regulations. It gives us a greater ability for appropriate flexibility and takes away the rigidity of putting things into the primary legislation, which is then the devil's own job to get changed.
	The affirmative resolution gives us the opportunity to decide whether to accept or reject it. We are becoming quite skilful at debating orders and statutory instruments. That skill, as I said when replying to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, will be made easier as the new committee comes on board and can give us greater assistance.
	We have a sound way of dealing with the issue. We also have a certain amount of history in relation to updating. Those of us who have a driving licence have to update information to the DVLA. We must tell it when we sell our cars. Therefore it is not something that is totally new or burdensome, and I shall certainly take into account the comments made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, about groups that need a specific facility in relation to their difficult circumstances. All of that can be encompassed within the regulations.

The Earl of Northesk: I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this important and useful debate. I echo my noble friends in being particularly grateful to the Minister for the considerable care and attention with which she has responded. I am both encouraged and comforted by her exposition of the Government's current thinking on the issue.
	There is no need to protract our proceedings unnecessarily at this hour, so on the basis that we shall probably return to these matters at later stages, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 25 to 35 not moved.]

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 36:
	Page 2, line 14, leave out paragraph (g).

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 37, 38 and 59.
	I realise that the hour is getting late, and I shall be brief to the point of perhaps being too brief. Amendments Nos. 36, 37 and 39 probe why the register should be used to store personal numbers and what exactly those numbers are intended to be. I raise this because there is no guidance in the explanatory notes. There may be some innocent answer but we have not yet been given guidance.
	I have to test the Committee's patience somewhat on Amendment No. 38 because it approaches a matter that could not be debated in another place. It relates to an amendment that the Government tabled very late in proceedings on Report, and because of the guillotine there was no opportunity for the Minister to explain the amendment.
	Considering the lateness of the hour, I wonder whether it would be convenient if I simply read into the record my questions and invite the Minister to write to me and all noble Lords present, and to place the letter in the Library so that we can consider our proceedings further on Report. If there is no objection from around the Committee, I shall proceed to do that.
	Subsection (6) was inserted by the Government on Report in another place. The Minister's only comment on 18 October at col. 741 was:
	"We do not have time to consider Government amendment No. 1, but I refer my hon. and learned Friend to it because it will give him the reassurance that he wants. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) raised the legitimate point in Committee that clause 1(5)(g) suggested that personal sensitive data could be covered by the Bill, such as those on the police national computer. We have thus tabled Government amendment No. 1 to rule out the use of sensitive personal data, as defined by the Data Protection Act 1998, with which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr Marshall-Andrews) will be familiar".—[Official Report, Commons, 18/10/05; col. 741.]
	Similarly at Third Reading the Home Secretary pursued the same form of reassurance. The Government stated that they tabled the amendment specifically to restrict the database from containing sensitive personal data.
	My difficulty is that I have received briefing from concerned members of the public to say that the problem is that the real effect of the amendment, which is limited to Clause 1(5) (g), is to achieve the exact opposite of that intended by the Government. It is to permit the processing of sensitive personal data in the database. I must then demonstrate why I believe that the government amendment limited to Clause 1(5)(g) would have that opposite effect.
	The answer is as follows. The ID card database content is specified in Schedule 1. There are about 50 data classes that could be stored in a central register. Those registrable facts fall within nine categories specified in Clause 1(5)(a) to (i). I shall not bore the Committee by reading them out; they are in the Bill. The technical amendment now forming Clause 1(6) tabled by the Home Secretary states that the registrable facts falling within paragraph (g) above,
	"do not include any sensitive personal data (within the meaning of the Data Protection Act 1998, (c.29)) or anything the disclosure of which would tend to reveal such data".
	By inference, that limitation automatically implies that paragraphs (a) to (i), except (g), could include sensitive personal data. So the amendment must be considered in conjunction with powers in the Bill to amend the database. Clause 3(5) states that the Secretary of State may, by order, modify the information for the time being set out in Schedule 1—which contains the ID card database. Thus, there are powers in the Bill to add sensitive personal data, such as criminal records and medical records, to items (a) to (i), except (g), to the register later.
	In other words, if the Government deem it relevant to hold criminal or health records in the database—for example, in connection with the purpose of securing the efficient and effective provision of public services in Clause 1(4) (e), primary legislation is not needed. That would be at odds with the statement of the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, to the third report of the House of Lords Constitution Committee at Appendix 3. She wrote:
	"Personal information not relevant for identification purposes and so not consistent with the statutory purposes (such as tax information, medical records and criminal records) cannot therefore be held on the Register without the Government passing fresh primary legislation".
	My amendment was tabled to ensure that the stated intention of the Government is carried into effect. It would achieve the objective set out by Mr Burnham and Mr Clarke in another place on Report and Third Reading and by the noble Baroness in her letter to the Select Committee on the Constitution. That is especially relevant in the light of questions raised earlier today on another amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, about the activities of the Inland Revenue.
	I stress that I do not doubt the Government's good intention by their amendment to exclude sensitive personal information. My concern is that, because there was not adequate time to debate an amendment that was welcomed on all sides, there may be an unintended consequence. With that, although I shall beg to move the amendment, I anticipate shortly formally to beg to withdraw it, in the anticipation that, in the mean time, before Report, the noble Baroness will write to me and other Members of the Committee. I beg to move.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: Perhaps I may just clarify an issue. Certain assumptions were made in what I said earlier, and I need to make clear the basis on which they were made. That relates to the order-making power. Members of the Committee will know that the power to amend or enact something to Schedule 1 is affirmative. The power to set requirements under Clause 5 for applications is negative.
	The requirement to notify changes under Clause 12 is by negative resolution. I hope noble Lords will have noticed that the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform made no adverse comment on Clause 5, but recommended that the first regulations be by affirmative resolution. We have made no decision on that. But speaking entirely for myself—always dangerous for a Minister to do from the Dispatch Box—it seems there may be real merit in making the first regulations by affirmative resolution. I would be anxious to come back to the House to confirm that is the view the Government have taken. Some of my comments earlier today might have predicated that decision which has not yet been taken. Noble Lords know I am not the policy Minister and of course it would be appropriate for us to discuss any change in the Government's current stance before I can confirm that to the House. I hope that is a helpful indication for me to have made.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: As we are very flexible in this House and self-regulating whenever it is practical to do so, I welcome the statement the Minister has just made. We will consider carefully what she said and welcome any discussions that may follow on from that. When I introduced my amendment in a rather brusque manner, I anticipated that the Government might not wish me to go on to my next group of amendments, which will take some considerable time. Therefore I will now beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 37 and 38 not moved.]

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I would like to thank the noble Baroness for her courtesy on this matter. I beg to move that the House do now resume.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	House resumed.
	House adjourned at seven minutes before ten o'clock.
	Wednesday, 16 November 2005.